James William Somerville (born 22 June 1961) is a Scottish pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 singer and songwriter. He had considerable success in the 1980s with the pop groups Bronski Beat

Bronski Beat

Bronski Beat were a popular British synthpop trio who achieved success in the mid 1980s, particularly with the 1984 chart hit "Smalltown Boy". All members of the group were openly homosexual and their songs reflected this, often containing political commentary on gay-related issues...

 and The Communards, and has also had a successful solo career. He is known in particular for his falsetto singing voice. He is also openly gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 and vocal about gay rights.

Somerville's latest album, Suddenly Last Summer was released in May 2009 as a digital download

Music download

A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...

 only.