David Bowie Made Me Gay

by Darryl W. Bullock

  He’s not one to rest on his laurels, though, and he understands that not everyone has been as lucky:

  There have been moments when I’ve been aware that being a gay man didn’t make me desirable as a signing or as an option of an artist to push, but I’ve also not had any direct hurdles in my path really. I’ve been very lucky I think, especially in the decade in which I came to release my music, as things were a lot more liberal in general then. It wasn’t as stigmatised and I also I wasn’t trying to be Michael Bublé or Robbie Williams or someone. If I was going that route, or if I was an actor, then I would be much more hesitant to talk about my sexuality, because I know that that wider, mass-appeal audience does have an issue with how they treat out artists … I did find it harder when I was doing more organic, folk-labelled music because nobody in that world at that time was out, really. I felt like I didn’t fit in to that world at all and I felt kind of at odds with myself and with that music scene in a way … everyone else was straight, other than Owen Pallett, who was a real anomaly in terms of how creative he was and how out and vocal he was. At the time I didn’t feel like I had any gay contemporaries.

  Born in Ontario, multi-instrumentalist and singer Pallett believes his work is implicitly influenced by his sexuality, saying, ‘As far as whether the music I make is gay or queer, yeah, it comes from the fact that I’m gay, but that doesn’t mean I’m making music about it.’12

  It was when Thomas started to explore electronic and dance music that he suddenly found a world full of kindred spirits. Formed in 2001, the Scissor Sisters’ eponymous debut was the UK’s biggest-selling album of 2004 and spawned five hit singles. Named after a lesbian sex act (the original moniker was Dead Lesbian; they then became the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters), original drummer Paddy Boom (born Patrick Seacor) was the only straight member of the five-piece, who fused glam rock, disco and electronica with ‘a giddy swirl of ’70s and ’80s pop pastiches’13 into a vibrant, dance-friendly pop sound that hit big with British audiences long before their home audience caught up. US sales of Scissor Sisters were not helped by retail giant Wal-Mart’s refusal to stock it, claiming that it the album was ‘a snarling, swaggering attack on conservatism’.14 No matter; in other territories the Scissor Sisters could do no wrong, and soon the Sisters were writing hits for Kylie Minogue (the UK Number Two ‘I Believe in You’), and collaborating with Elton John on their Number One single ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’’; the band’s male vocalist Jake Shears (born Jason Sellards) and long-time Sisters collaborator John “JJ” Garden wrote the music for the stage adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. Many Scissor Sisters lyrics (usually written by Shears and Scott Hoffman, aka Babydaddy) deal with LGBT themes: ‘Filthy/Gorgeous’ is about transsexual prostitutes while ‘Take Your Mama’ deals with coming out to family members. The video for ‘Filthy/Gorgeous’, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, co-creator and director of the cult film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, aped Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’. It was every inch as outlandish as the original, but 20 years on, videos set in sex dens were less shocking than they once had been.

  As Rod Thomas and the Scissor Sisters have found, support from established names goes a long way towards encouraging acceptance: bisexual American singer Meshell Ndegeocello was one of the first acts signed to Madonna’s Maverick label, and appeared on her mentor’s Bedtime Stories album. Her song ‘Leviticus Faggot’ from the 1996 album Peace Beyond Passion tells the stories of people encountering extreme homophobia: ‘I grew up in an environment where there was homophobia and it came out of a bunch of experiences all bundled up into one song, it just came from life. It’s a story that a lot of people can tell.’15 Meshell’s 2012 album Pour une Ame Souveraine (For a Sovereign Soul) is a tribute to bisexual singer Nina Simone. That influence can go both ways; established artists looking for a career boost will often seek out the services of Linda Perry, one of the most in-demand writers and producers working in pop and rock today. The songwriter (now married to actress Sara Gilbert) first found fame when she fronted the band 4 Non Blondes (‘What’s Up’ was a huge international success in 1993), but has become better known for writing and producing hits for a number of world-famous artists, including Miley Cyrus, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani and Celine Dion, and for working with artists as diverse as Adam Lambert, Courtney Love, Robbie Williams and Adele.

  Rufus Wainwright, the son of folk singers Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III (and brother of singer Martha Wainwright), identified as gay while a teenager, coming out to his parents when he was 14:

  My mother wasn’t happy when she found out. She’d found a magazine or something and so I told her. She basically told me, “Don’t tell me something I don’t want to hear.” And I went, “Okay.” And then I basically told her I was straight. She just wanted to live in denial for a while which I think a lot of parents want to do. I came out again much later, when I was 18. I made the announcement and then it was more accepted.16

  He released his eponymous debut album in 1998 and since then has issued more than a dozen albums, written two operas and has taken part in the Cyndi Lauper-founded True Colors touring festival, which raised funds for LGBT campaign groups including the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG and the Matthew Shepard Foundation. In the summer of 2001, Rufus was joined by the Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, the Magnetic Fields and others for Wotaplava, the world’s first gay-themed touring music festival, with concerts in 18 North American cities. On 23 August 2012, he married his partner, German-born arts administrator Jörn Weisbrodt, in Montauk, New York.

  Like Grant, Thomas and the Scissor Sisters, Wainwright is a keen collaborator, appearing as guest vocalist on the 2006 Pet Shop Boys album Concrete and on I Am a Bird Now, the 2005 Mercury prize-winning album by Antony and the Johnsons. Anohni was born (and given the name Antony Hegarty by his family) in 1971 in Chichester, West Sussex, England, although her family moved first to Amsterdam and then to New York before she was 10. A lonely, introverted child who ‘saw my reflection in Boy George,’ as a young teen she was ‘listening to OMD, Kate Bush, Culture Club, Alison Moyet and especially Marc and the Mambas, which was this incredibly dark and emotional side project for Marc Almond. I was probably the only child in America who had those records, special ordering them at the age of 13.’17 Like Meshell Ndegeocello, she was also heavily influenced by Nina Simone.

  In 1990, while attending the Experimental Theatre Wing of New York University, Anohni co-founded the performance collective Blacklips, basing her gender-defying look on those teenage heroes: ‘On the cover of “Torch” [the 1982 Soft Cell single] there is a picture of a transvestite without her wig, with her head shaved and smoking a cigarette. I modelled myself on that. It’s what I looked like when I was 19 and playing at the Pyramid Club, shaved and smoking on a stool.’

  Infamous for stalking the streets of New York with the words ‘fuck off’ written on her forehead, Lou Reed was an early fan: ‘When I heard Antony, I knew that I was in the presence of an angel,’ he said.18 While singing in bars and touting tapes around record companies, Anohni formed a band, a loose collection of friends she christened Antony and the Johnsons. From the off, Antony and the Johnsons revelled in a queer aesthetic; Anohni lyrics were brutal, raw and defiantly sexual (‘Cripple and the Starfish’, from their debut album, describes an abusive gay relationship from the perspective of the abused partner) and Anohni distinctive voice and deft lyrics quickly became in demand among New York’s elite, leading to her working with Reed, Yoko Ono, Rufus Wainwright and her idol, Boy George.

  In 2015 Anohni, who had always been open about her transgender status and had bared her soul on such songs as ‘For Today I Am A Boy’ (from I Am a Bird Now, which opens with the couplet ‘One day I’ll grow up, I’ll be a beautiful woman’) revealed that she was now ready to live life as a woman, transitioning and releasing a new album, Hopelessness. In a radio interview with Radio One’s Annie Mac, Anohni revealed that she had been using the name ‘in my per
sonal life for years now’. Anohni is the co-founder of the Future Feminist Foundation, a growing network of friends, thinkers and associates including Reed’s widow Laurie Anderson.19

  *

  Record companies in Britain took note of the critical acclaim that the new wave of LGBT artists were having and went looking for similar artists. One of those approached was the London-based (Scots-born and Adelaide-raised) singer-songwriter k. anderson, who had been building a following for his folk-influenced, deeply personal songs. ‘I’ve had a few interactions with the music industry over the years,’20 he explains, ‘and they are always interesting. In the wake of Rufus Wainwright’s success I was seen by some as a British-lite version, and so had some sharks circling for a wee while. This was also around the time when self-releasing became a viable option for bands, and so I saw lots of acts record, release and promote their own releases. Being the control freak that I am this was super appealing to me, and I guess I romanticised how rewarding and easy it would be. The reality is much more tedious and involves far more hours of self-doubt and pity. But, somehow that feels about right.’

  anderson self-released two EPs and a critically-lauded album, The Overthinker, although in recent years he has concentrated on getting his music out via download sites and by making award-winning videos for YouTube. It’s hardly surprising that Tom Robinson would pick up on the buzz, featuring anderson’s ‘14 Year-Old Me’ and his most recent single ‘Bitter Wind’ on his BBC Radio 6 show. anderson’s lyrics are equally as personal as those of Wainwright or Grant, and in a way echo the songs of Steven Grossman, although his own influences are more prosaic. ‘Ani DiFranco, Lisa Loeb, Joni Mitchell … hell, there was a time when I was indiscriminately listening to music made by women wielding guitars,’ he admits.

  The 1960s were a big influence on my music. Motown is the obvious starting place – my heart belongs to The Supremes – but also the Brill Building sound created by these young, naïve, brilliant musicians holed up in tiny offices in a random building on Broadway, NYC. Something about the romance of it all has always resonated with me. The thing about what I do, musically, is that it is so reliant on the lyrics being honest and about my own life and experiences, that it would just be jarring and strange if I watered it down and took out references to gender or, indeed, denied the fact that my sexuality is one of the most important factors in helping to define my character; the way that I have had to navigate and negotiate the world around me due to the stigma and attitudes about homosexuality. It’s never really been a question for me about whether or not to hide my sexuality in my songs and persona. Plus, it’s just not really practical for me to pretend to be straight – it’s stonkingly obvious when you meet me!’

  The very fact that record companies would be looking for obviously LGBT artists to add to their roster is evidence that prejudice is – slowly – evaporating. Yet even in these enlightened days, some musical genres are still resistant to any performer being open and honest about their sexuality. When Trey Pearson of Christian rock band Everyday Sunday came out as gay in May 2016, he was immediately axed from appearing at Joshua Fest, a Christian music festival held annually in Northern California. Members of the production team threatened to walk out if Pearson performed at the three-day event. He did appear, as the surprise guest of fellow Christian rockers Five Iron Frenzy: the band had considered boycotting the festival to protest against Pearson’s exclusion.21 Luther Vandross was a giant of the recording industry, who sang backing vocals for David Bowie and co-wrote the song ‘Fascination’ which appeared on Bowie’s 1975 album Young Americans. He also enjoyed fame as a solo star, selling in excess of 35 million records and was the recipient of eight Grammy Awards, including four for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Yet he died, in 2005 after a stroke, having never come out – seemingly worried about how the revelation would affect his career. ‘Clearly, a lot of black gay performers feel they can’t come out,’ Michael Roberson, director of gay group People of Colour in Crisis, told Pink News. ‘Yet it would be important, particularly to black gay young people, to see black gay role models’.22

  Irish singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Hozier-Byrne, who performs under the mononym Hozier, released his debut EP Take Me to Church in 2013; the video for the powerful title track (which also appeared on his first album, Hozier), features two men kissing passionately; the men are pursued by a mob who eventually track one of them down and beat him to a pulp. Conceived to raise awareness and offer support for gay marriage following the criminalisation of homosexuality in Russia, the track reached the Number Two spot in Britain and America and was nominated for a Grammy for Song of the Year. Hozier himself is straight, but the song made many in the media question his sexuality. ‘I don’t think it’s the point,’ he told the Reuters news agency. ‘It doesn’t come into it … regardless of the sexual orientation behind a relationship, it is still a relationship and still love … So people are free to make any assumption they want’.23 Perhaps we’re ready for a new, more accepting world where the male vocalists of a band like Australia’s The Goon Sax can sing about wanting a boyfriend or imagining what it would be like to hold hands with the cute tall guy down the road without being automatically accused of being queer, or where artists like Britain’s Rag ‘n’ Bone Man can openly support LGBT rights without having their own sexuality questioned. Not one interviewer has questioned The Goon Sax – Brisbane teenagers Riley Jones, Louis Forster and James Harrison who formed their band at high school in 2013 – about their sexuality. It’s simply not relevant.

  Or maybe it is. Sadly we still live in a world rampant with both overt and casual homophobia (Katy Perry may claim to support LGBT rights, but her first hit for Capitol was the distinctly homophobic ‘UR So Gay’), a world lurching towards the Right politically with the LGBT community facing an erosion of our hard-won rights. That homophobia is still present in the mainstream media: when Boyzone singer Stephen Gately was discovered dead by his husband in their Spanish villa in October 2009, the accusations flew. In an article headlined ‘Why There was Nothing “Natural” about Stephen Gately’s Death,’ Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir was the first to dance on his grave. It did not matter that Gately had died from a previously undetected heart condition and that the official post mortem attributed the singer’s death to natural causes. ‘Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again. Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one,’ she continued. ‘The circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy’. She continued to write that Gately’s death ‘strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships’ and that ‘once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see’. The article provoked a massive outcry, not just from bereaved Boyzone fans and members of Stephen Gately’s family, but from people worldwide outraged at Moir’s shocking, ghoulish glee in the death of a young celebrity – and the obvious homophobia displayed in her column. The Irish edition of the newspaper refused to run the article. Moir’s piece prompted a record 25,000 complaints to the press watchdog, and the online version of the article was quickly amended. Although she flatly refused to retract her words, Moir did apologise to his family for the timing of her article. Too late: the damage was already done.24

  Social media has changed the landscape in more ways than one. Not only is it easier for an unsigned or independent act to find an audience for their music, but musicians are also able to interact with fans directly, bypassing onerous PR departments. Sometimes this can be a bad thing – after all, one of the functions of a decent PR department is to keep their charges out of trouble – but more often than not it allows artists the opportunity to be more human, and gives music consumers a level of access never before afforded them. Olly Alexander regularly uses his Instagram account to post pictures of himself with his partner Neil Am
in-Smith, the violinist for electronic group Clean Bandit, and he’s not alone. ‘It’s a bit of a double-edged sword,’ says k. anderson:

  Yes, there are more and more independent LGBT artists breaking through, and that’s largely because of the widespread use of the Internet and having infinite platforms to promote themselves on. But, and this is true of most currently successful musicians, the artistry is becoming less important than the image. There are a tonne of pretty young male singers who post endless pictures of themselves at the gym, and get a tonne of attention for it. But, when they then post their songs or videos they get a fraction of the attention. I’m not trying to say that there has ever been a point in time when the image hasn’t been important, but there’s something that’s a bit relentless and vapid about the whole thing. No one is locked in a room writing songs for themselves anymore – instead they are almost tailoring their output to the audience they know intimately. Maybe that’s a good thing, though?

  While there’s no denying that YouTube, Facebook, Soundcloud et al. are making it easier for LGBT artists to be heard, these platforms also allow people the opportunity to rediscover (or, more often than not, uncover for the very first time) music made 30, 40 even 50 years ago or more. Reissue programmes – like the one spearheaded by Chapter Music’s Ben O’Connor and Guy Blackman – are, in Blackman’s own words, ‘providing neglected gay artists with long overdue validation and re-assessment, and filling a gaping hole in our historical awareness … when the Strong Love compilation came out in 2012 … we never imagined [it] would find a mainstream audience, but we wanted the songs to enter the digital world and have a permanent presence, so that anyone could come to them when they were ready.’ Tracking down these artists and their recordings has had a profound influence on Guy’s own work: