I plan to write about homosexuals and pop music over the next couple of weeks.I mentioned it in passing a coupla days ago and the more I’ve thought about it the more I have found it… interesting in its hypocrisy… also weird in its hypocrisy.
Look at it this way: In the 1950s Kinsey claimed 10% of Americans were gay. Figure the number is higher because all the Roy Cohn’s in the world are out and all the people who have surpressed their sexuality to the point of neurosis are out (let’s say: are AWARE of their sexual preference. Let’s up the number to 15% of all Americans are gay. Now lets add adnother 5% because homosexuals tend to in larger numbers in the arts.
So one out of every song male rock star sucks cock.
So why does that number sound outrageoys. Even given that country and hip hop stars can’t come out, even for say indie, that number is awful high.
Look at Billboard’s Top 20 singls charts. How many homosexuals do you see there? None?One: Nicki Minaj
What’s going on here. Some of the most successful men in the business are out -Elton John, David Geffen, Jann Wenner, and yet it feels omerta.
A quick history of gays in pop.
1. Liberace sues at the suggestion he is gay and wins.
2. Nobody gets Little Richard.
3. All those cute boys of the late 50s-early 60s, never admitted they were getting butt fucked by their managers and blowing their way to the of the charts.
4. The hippies ain’t fags, Motown ain’t fags. Forget it -the pop of the 60s is the Iran of the time: “we have no homosexuals”. Brian Epstein? For all his money and power? He couldn’t come out. Dusty Springfield -it drove her to drink, Lesley Gore. Decades later these women were outed or came out.
5. End of the 60s -the Velvet Underground, promoted by Andy Warhol?, this was the first stirrings of a true homosexual movement in pop music.
6. The early 70s were the height of gay in rock. Disco on the one hand, glam on the other, men in skirts and lipstick, Bowie claiming to be bi-sexual, Elton John, Lou Reed… the entire scene celebrated gayness. Women? Not so much…
7. Punk put a knife in it while being relatively gay friendly.
8. By the late 70s, Tom Robinson Band, Jam Today, the Au Pairs, many other bands were gay, political and out.
9. But the late 80s, 90s, much less so. Hip hop loathed homosexuals, grunge was indifferent and alt, a Mike Stipes of REM or a Richard Barone of the Bongo’s were still not all the way out. Elton finished the process, Rob Halford of Judas Priest was out and that makes one metal-er.
10. By the 00s, homosexuality became much more accepted in Western society, and there were some musical movements, like Queercore, which were gaycentric.
So let’s go to the top 50.
Here is a list of all the homosexuals:
Nicki Minaj
Adam Lambert
The chick in Sugarland though she may have quit the band.