More than Disco, Dance Pop, Soul ...
» Gay music
I own about three thousand compact discs. The bulk of the music was recorded between 1925 and 1959. Not that I don’t enjoy disco and funk. I empathize with Brent Ledger’s frustration:
Sure, some of the composers on the CMC website are gay and, within their sphere, influential and important. People like Colin McPhee, who helped introduce Balinese music to the west, and Claude Vivier, dead at 34 but already considered one of the most original figures in Canadian music.
But somehow they seldom make a blip on the commercial gay radar. … American gay glossy Out printed a list of the 100 gayest albums of all time.
The album list was heavy on stuff like Madonna, Bowie, Queen, The Smiths, Elton John and George Michael, while the anthems were a veritable who’s who of old disco standards – “Y.M.C.A.,” “I’m Coming Out” and the like.
Missing entirely, obviously, was any sort of variety. There was no jazz, blues or classical. Reading these lists, you’d think gays never listened to anything but white pop-rock from the 1970s and 1980s, with maybe a dollop of disco/dance.
…
But there’s more to gay culture than just a few pop hits, and you don’t have to be an opera queen to think some of it might come from the classical sphere.
Read the whole essay: There’s more to gay music than the Village People
