Songs about the early years of HIV/AIDS

• What are some songs about the early years of HIV/AIDS in the US and the politics surrounding it? Think musical equivalent of something like Angels in America. I'm running in a 5k for my local HIV/AIDS fund this weekend. I have an playlist that I listen to when I run, but for this particular occasion I want to add in some songs as a reminder of why I picked this run in particular for my first-ever 5k. (I was in part motivated by a friend who was a major local ACT-UP and syringe exchange activist, if that gives you any ideas.) I know a bit about the literature that comes out of the early days of HIV/AIDS: Angels in America, The Normal Heart, People in Trouble, etc. But what, if any music was there? All that matters to me for my playlist is that the songs are musically uptempo. Lyrically they can be anything from defiant "fuck you Ronald Reagan, people I love are dying" to more mournful tribute songs. Thinly or not-so-thinly veiled allusions that don't directly talk about AIDS/queer communities, etc are okay, so long as you can grasp the basic idea of what the songwriter's getting at. Heck, I'll even give slow songs a chance; I'm interested in music of this period more generally, even aside from my playlist. Am I looking to punk for this? Were there pop songs that managed to fly under the radar? I'm too young to remember this period much at all. I've seen http://ask.metafilter.com/187374/What-should-I-put-on-this-mix-tape-and-whose-work-will-remind-me-of-Arthur-Russell, which gets at some of the political ideas I'm after, but I'm interested in focusing in on HIV/AIDS and its effects in queer communities more specifically.

• Answer:

  The entire soundtrack of Rent. While obviously very different from Angels in America in many respects, it is and was a musical version of Angels in several key ways. Some of the more up-tempo songs might be good for running; the anthem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8QVkGfHMg comes to mind.