Jay Brannan

Brannan was born 1982 in Texas in a middle-class family and grew up as the son of a petroleum engineer and a teacher.^[3][4][5] He described his family as conservative Baptists and mentions their beliefs on homosexuality.^[6][7] Brannan went to college for one semester in Cincinnati, Ohio, and went to California, first to Palm Springs and later to Los Angeles, trying to become an actor.^[3][5] In 2002, he was shown a casting notice and, after the end of a relationship, moved to New York City and submitted an audition tape.^[3] He also worked as a proofreader of legal documents for a translation company.

Brannan was cast in 2003 for the movie Shortbus and worked as a proofreader and in other jobs to support himself.^[8] He contributed the song "Soda Shop" to the film's soundtrack, which he stated was his "first professionally recorded track".^[8] The song was also released on Team Love Records.^[9] Brannan began to record sparse music videos for YouTube, accompanying himself on the guitar, and built an international fan base without corporate sponsorship, using MySpace and Blogspot.^[10][11] In 2007, he appeared in the movie Holding Trevor as the promiscuous best friend of the protagonist, and released a limited-edition EP with fours songs named disasterpiece or Unmastered, adding two additional songs for a 2008 re-release.^[4][12]

In July 2008, Brannan released the album Goddamned through his own label, Great Depression Records, and toured ten dates, a departure from his previous practice of short tours of about four concerts.^[10][13] The same year, Brannan left his proofreading job and sustained himself with earnings from concerts and merchandise.^[11] His second album, In Living Cover, was released in 2009 and reached number ten on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart for the week of July 25, 2009.^[14] Brannan promoted the album in an interview on ABC News's Now in July 2009.^[15] Always, Then, & Now, his fourth studio album, was released on July 15, 2014, on his own independent label Great Depression Records.

Brannan is a tenor.^[3] Allmusic described his style as contemporary singer-songwriter and compared him to female artists, including Ani DiFranco, Lisa Loeb, Sinéad O'Connor, and Liz Phair.^[4] Goddamned was described as lo-fi and Brannan compared his concerts to intimate performances in his home.^[11][16] He has performed with Terra Naomi and both were compared in style and described as performing indie folk.^[16] The New York Times stated in 2006 that Brannan was sometimes compared to singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright and that Brannan saw himself as echoing the angry and sad sound of female singers like Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell.^[3]

• In 2006, he was nominated at the Gotham Awards for Best Ensemble Cast for role in 2006 film Shortbus (joint nomination with Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Peter Stickles and Justin Vivian Bond).^[17]
• In 2012, he was nominated for a Genie Award in the category "Best Achievement in Music – Original Song" for his song "My Love, My Love" from the soundtrack of 2011 film Cloudburst.^[17]