Who do you think is a 'gay music icon' (besides Lady Gaga)?

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Rihanna?

Maybe a 'gay music icon' for Broken Rainbow?

 

[hungprep]

Maybe a 'gay music icon' for Broken Rainbow?

If Rihanna perhaps supported Broken Rainbow – if she's ever heard of Broken Rainbow (or any similar organization in the US or elsewhere) or if she's that… altruistic, caring, or self-aware… (Perhaps, if she got beat up in the UK, do you think?)

W/E, Chris Brown's current sales numbers vie with hers in the aftermath of all that… publicity.

Here's someone who positively shied away from publicity in her time, never really adequately explaining the subtext of her one, hit song – perhaps, thereby, actually fueling the subsequent publicity machine that revved up in support of the fairly obvious, gay angle, exploited if weakly in the later film, starring Robby Benson…

Just what was Billie Joe's terrible secret – that led him to jump (to his apparent death) off the Tallahatchie Bridge?


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZt5Q-u4crc&fmt=18"]Ode to Billie Joe Bobbie Gentry[/ame]
.

 

[hungprep]

^_^ As I just reread what I posted this morning, I'm inclined to think it was too obscure – at least insofar as I left open the question of whether Bobbie Gentry would qualify as a 'gay music icon.' That really wasn't my intention, however.

So, here instead is someone I would 'nominate' – <ahem> a favorite son, Mr Chairman, from the home of the Ravens, Orioles, and John Waters, Baltimore, Maryland, I give you, Mr Harris Glenn Milstead, covering The Vaselines' You Think You're a Man, but You're Only a Boy…


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd2Gzkkwe9Q&fmt=18"]Divine[/ame]
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[Jersey Domino]

And NaughtyArousal, if you're not a big fan of Judy Garland, surrender your gay card...IMMEDIATELY!!!

Well I guess I should give mine up too because I don't even know who the hell she is.(and don't really care to know either)

 

[belamyi]

Maybe because they have more balls than guys do and aren't afraid to support us.

I'd like to add Rufus Wainwright too in case no one has:

Surely because they are bigger clowns, flashier and typically far more naggingly overbearing than men, hen-pecked or not.

 

[belamyi]

And surely because they're not closet gay guys that get outed after trying to smooch on dicks in public bushes.

Closeted because of the burden of their whining overbearing mamas on their own hen-peck natures

 

[belamyi]

Now you sound like every gay guy's homophobic fathers.

Those were the mamas I was talking about YOU MEAN every Anglo homophobic father, that is: the ones in Spain are just pathetic deSPICable creatures.

 

[borg69unimatrix]

1) Judy Garland
2) Barbra Streisand
3) Bette Midler
4) Liza Minnelli

There is no one else. Case closed.

Shouldn't Cher be on that list? Surely she ranks higher then Bette Midler ?

 

[belamyi]

I thought spic was the name assholes here gave to Caribbean, Central American and South American immigrants?? Not Euros.

Cf. our discussion in my last thread on the topic of the Anglo mental confusion about looks, nationalities and all that crap.

 

[borg69unimatrix]

I see Belamo and Elvin are having yet another pissing contest. LOL

Flame ON.

 

[belamyi]

 

[GiacomoPisani]

elvin mi querido amor,que lindo eres, eres tu que estar en la photo? que lindo ,estoy enamorado de ti hahahaha

es verdad que los gringos son racista pero no todos son asi.hay gringos estupidos y idiotas pero otros son inteligentes. tambien hai muchos blancos en cuba y argentina que son italianos y espanoles.

me gusta mucho hablar espanol,vivo en miami beach y todos los dias hablo mucho espanol.

 

[hungprep]

es verdad que los gringos son racista pero no todos son asi.hay gringos estupidos y idiotas pero otros son inteligentes.

¡Gracias! Y que este gringo decir, tanto como me encanta su pasión famoso de sangre caliente, pueden mis amigos que hablan español se adhieren a este tema, por favor?

Por cierto, belamo, olé de Miguel de Molina y Luis Mariano, bellas voces, aunque su machismo es algo pasado de moda… y trillado. Pero aún Cyndi Rulez. ¡Viva!

But from me today, here's someone else who definitely once was a 'gay music icon' – in every sense of the term.

From The Dick Cavett Show, July 18, 1969…


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkGUt4QYc08&fmt=18"]Janis Joplin[/ame]
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[belamyi]

Por cierto, belamo, olé de Miguel de Molina y Luis Mariano, bellas voces, aunque su machismo es algo pasado de moda… y trillado. Pero aún Cyndi Rulez. ¡Viva!

They were homosexuals and they had to leave Spain because of it (Miguel was even literally beaten out of Spain): the songs reflect the hen-pecked machismo of those who felt somehow threatened by them and forced them to sing... and then leave because they wouldn't tolerate them.

 

[hungprep]

^_^ I'm very sorry to hear that. I was thinking you picked them because they were 'campy' – like Divine – but in a Spanish/Latino sort of way.

Thank you for putting the poignant tragedy of their lives in context for those of us who were completely unfamiliar with them.

As someone else on this site used to say, 'Yo soy un hombre sincero…'
.

 

[OmegaBlush]

I seriously can't believe no one has mentioned David Bowie. That man, along with his merry gang of alter-egos, set me free as a young man.

I find it interesting that many gay men list women as gay icons. I don't want to get into a psychological debate on the issue or anything, I just mean that I myself don't really feel that way. I know Madonna and others have always accepted and loved their gay fans and community in general. But for myself I have always felt more drawn to male performers in this way. Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Boy George, Elton John (who also wasn't mentioned), even Iggy Pop. Jake Shears of Sister Scissors should be on this list as well, but maybe he's too new. When I think "Gay Icon" I don't necessarily think of someone who has used their career to advance the gay...I was about to say agenda haha...but you know what I mean. It can mean that, but usually for me it's someone who treats queerness as no big deal, like it's natural, that's it's a part of them and their awesome personality. Maybe that's why I react negatively to those who I think are pandering to the gay community *cough cough born this way cough cough*.

As far as Marilyn Manson, I still listen to his older stuff (I can't believe I've started to use 'older' in reference to music...I'm getting old). I don't know if I'd call him a gay icon but he's definitely pro-gay rights and against traditional views of sexuality. In his song "I don't like the drugs (but the drugs like me)" he starts with 'We're white and oh so hetero'. His guitarist used to dress in drag. I know i used to appreciate his defiance of traditional definitions of masculinity and sexuality.

 

[FanofFiction]

I wish gays wouldn't obsess over female pop stars like they're god. It's just as bad as the teen girls obsessing over Justin Bieber.

I think there are a lot of perfectly acceptable reasons for this actually. First, female singers tend to be more accepting and vastly more vocal in their support of the gay fanbase. Most times when I saw male vocalists interviewed and asked how they feel about their gay fans they'd answer with, "I don't mind that I have gay fans. But I'm not gay. I'm definitely not gay."

Then there's the music itself. A lot of gay men are attracted to the music that female artists put out. Not all gay men, but I would dare guess it is a majority.

Lastly, I think the drag queens have more fun immitating Donna Summer and Madonna then they would Sinatra and Justin Timberlake.

 

[castoono]

Great topic.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR2G-iI3-I"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR2G-iI3-I[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkQFpmdYOM0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkQFpmdYOM0[/ame]

 

[belamyi]

I think there are a lot of perfectly acceptable reasons for this actually. First, female singers tend to be more accepting and vastly more vocal in their support of the gay fanbase. Most times when I saw male vocalists interviewed and asked how they feel about their gay fans they'd answer with, "I don't mind that I have gay fans. But I'm not gay. I'm definitely not gay."

Then there's the music itself. A lot of gay men are attracted to the music that female artists put out. Not all gay men, but I would dare guess it is a majority.

Lastly, I think the drag queens have more fun immitating Donna Summer and Madonna then they would Sinatra and Justin Timberlake.

You can relate this discussion more to the current state of the show business, general musical education and, since we talk about genre, to the culturally predominant approaches to music and creativity by males and females, rather than to the "str8-acting" thing: notice that being "vocal" about supporting gay people, firstly mean supporting the showy show-business parade-loving side of it, that is, "the scene", and it became a fashion as the show business itself grow outrageously showy and ostentatious itself, particularly under the influence of entertainers who are more or less vocally talented or more or less mediocre, and who make up for it and offer a plus that other mediocre artists had never thought of exploiting before.
Even if you are actually very talented and skillful, as the public have been increasingly becoming more tone-deaf, from opera houses to the last joint on the planet, it became NECESSARY to rely more heavily on the visual or, in general, non-acoustic side of the show.
If, as a musician, you focus on lyrics and music itself, you give way to both equally musically talented women and women who simply "put on a show". If women are more "practical", more "socially-oriented" and less "idealist", then for one Jeff Buckley you have a dozen Rihannas, Perries, Chers, Gagas, JLos, Madonnas, Britneys and JustinE Biebers
People like Beyoncé or Julie Andrews may be more or less openly supporting and more or less "iconized" by the gay establishment, and they will remain what they essentially and supposedly are: grrrreat artists. In any case, the gay icon thing, even if you try to "make it happen" like Mado or Gag do, is something that essentially comes from the mass of fans, down-up, not up-down.

 

[GiacomoPisani]

elvin,papi, que lindoooooooooo estas!!!!!!!!!

well, i didn't mean to say that you were a racist or anything, hahaha

my partner is cuban and spanish too,coz he told me that cuba and Puerto rico were territories of spain long time ago,i didn't know that before, what a surprise, coz i thought that they were colonies like mexico,and i was surprised that they weren't.

i'm italian but i came to the usa in the year 1999 so i'm sort of "americanized".