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 |  Subject: The Lambert Effect :: Is American Pop Queer-friendly?  01.03.10 19:03 | |
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- When Adam Lambert made his man-kissing, leather-clad appearance on the American Music Awards late last year he subsequently ignited a backlash of viewer complaints, cancelled appearances and media criticism.
At the time, many in the music industry, including Lambert himself, questioned the degree to which the ensuing uproar had to do with his being openly gay, rather than simply overtly sexual. After all, numerous prominent, heterosexual female performers have performed equally, if not surpassingly, titillating displays on television in recent years. Unlike the provocative lineage these Madonnas and Britneys follow, Lambert does not enjoy the same luxury. When it comes to sexually explicit, openly gay American male pop performers, the precedent is practically nonexistent.
And yet, despite the controversy, it appears Lambert has weathered the storm, rendering the uproar an unlikely publicity victory. Over two months later, the American Idol runner-up remains a hot Hollywood commodity, recently appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show and registering album sales that continue to hold steady on the Billboard charts.
With all of this in mind, EDGE wanted to put the 1,500 viewer complaints received by ABC following Lambertgate into a new context. Through the fresh lens of the gay idol’s rising star, we ask what effect being openly queer continues for gay and lesbian musicians today? Are we heading away from the legacy of American pop closets? Or does a certain stigma still remain for musicians seeking mainstream success?
Out artists (clockwise from top left): Rostam Batmanglij (from the group Vampire Weekend); British pop star Will Young; Seff of Hunx and his Punx; and Israeli singer Ivri Lider.
The label of "gay singer"
"I didn’t want to deny [being gay] because that’s not me, I want to own it," Lambert told Winfrey during his appearance aired Jan. 19. "But I chose not to give myself a label because that label would be attached to me from then on out.
"Because then people would say, ’There’s the gay guy?’" Winfrey asked.
"And now that’s what they say!" Lambert returned. "The gay part comes before the singer part, and I’m like, that doesn’t define who I am."
And yet, discomfort aside, when Lambert cashed in for the Rolling Stone cover story last fall confirming the rumors that he was, in fact, gay, it would be naive to be surprised with being branded with the "gay singer" label. Along with that label - and the increased national profile it allows - comes a certain degree of extra scrutiny beyond that already facing any public figure in today’s world of 24-hour news and Twitter trending topics.
Even before the AMAs controversy, Out Magazine aired Lambert’s dirty laundry via an editor’s note claiming the singer’s handlers were not thrilled with his appearance in the gay-centric publication. Following the show, criticism from within the gay community was layered atop the expected cries from social conservatives.
Gay club icon Kristine W. noted in an interview with EDGE that, while not commenting on the performance herself, none of her "thousands of gay boyfriends" she knew had enjoyed Lambert.
"They [felt] that many of them have worked really hard to lead a professional, classy life and not face the stereotype of being a sex-driven pervert. Sure, they have their parties where they get crazy, but that’s their parties. They don’t put those parties on national television and don’t invite their parents there. Their feeling was that it wasn’t appropriate."
Nadine Hubbs, University of Michigan associate professor of women’s studies and music and author of "The Queer Composition of America’s Sound," noted the gay community’s criticism of Lambert reflected a trend called "homonormativity" that has emerged as gays and lesbians progress toward increased legal protections. She compared the trend to the role civil rights struggles have had on public figures in other identity groups.
"Any minoritized group that remains minoritized as we are is going to have a respectability impulse come back to the fore when some member of our group does something provocative," Hubbs explained. "We’ve had a long history as queer people of different kinds of strategies for improving our situation and the respectability tactic tends to resurface when one of us gains attention through our sexuality."
John Gill, author of "Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in 20th Century Music, explains, Lambert was indeed "shot by both sides." His reception, particularly from the gay community, reaching a level of scrutiny unprecedented when compared to previously outed performers.
"[He was shot] by critics on the gay right who would be happier if we all dressed in suits, and prudish lefties of any sexual persuasion," Gill said. "Were these people living on Mars when two decades of pop closets, from Elton to the Pets, via Morrissey and Stipe, dissembled about their sexuality, but the ’gay’ media loved them anyway?"
Putting Lambert’s media blitz into historical context, sources interviewed for this story had plenty of names of out musicians who’d come before whose influence is undeniably present in Lambert’s theatrics, but key differences remain. From Elton John to Jimmy Somerville, Erasure to Boy George, the legacy of out pop kings has a home across the pond in the U.K.
"Never before has there been a gay American man threatening the pop chart who was out," said Louis Niebur, an associate professor of musicology at University of Nevada-Reno. "It goes back to [the American] fear of synth over the guitar - the idea about what rock n’ roll is - an American thing that real men do. It’s OK that British people do new wave and synth pop, but it’s not rock n’ roll.
"[Lambert] is threatening to American ideas of masculinity, which rock n’ roll is so tied into," Niebur added.
It’s a man’s world
The deep-rooted threat to American-centric definitions of what a rock star is and who one sleeps with shares obvious ties with gender. John, perhaps the most universally-acclaimed gay musician of all time, married a woman, Renata Blauel, in the mid-1980s, while still claiming his bisexuality, which he later claimed was a "compromise." R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe took many, many years before openly discussing his sexuality. And British musician Morrissey, king of the pop closet, has also consistently denied persistent gay rumors, claiming he is asexual.
These mens’ apprehension is both juxtaposed and predated by a long lineage of lesbians - Alix Dobkin, Tret Fure, Cris Williamson, k.d. lang, the Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge - whose collective vocabulary does not include the word "closet." At the start of Dobkin’s career in the 1960s, the singer was known for repeating the phrase "Any woman can be a lesbian." And even when female performers have shared intimate exchanges on television - like the infamous Britney-Madonna kiss at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards - the media response has paled in comparison to that of a male embrace.
"When female singers have [kissed on television], the women are known not to be lesbians, so that’s always different," Hubbs explained. "If an out queer person does it, it has more teeth. For a man to do it is more threatening as well, because when two women kiss, the heterosexist world assumes it’s for their heterosexual pleasure."
Cody Critcheloe, lead singer of the sexually-charged art-punk band SSION, says he draws inspiration from female singers’ sexual freedom dating back long ago. He feels the double standard.
"It’s really aggravating that dudes can’t get away with doing a certain type of performance that women have been doing for so long," Critcheloe said. "It’s strange that there is so much more freedom, in a weird way, to being a female performer than a gay male performer, but it is so rarely addressed."
It is important to note, that many performers - likely more than we will ever know - have chosen to shut up and resist the "gay singer" label. Hunky songwriter Jay Brannan, best known for his contributions to the Shortbus soundtrack, declined EDGE’s interview request saying that "’being gay’ is probably my least favorite topic. It just isn’t what my life or music are about." Other musicians and publicists did not respond to our inquiries.
"Every queer artist has to decide whether to speak out or shut up," Gill commented.
And some in the industry maintain shutting up may not be the worst idea, at least those at the beginning of their careers. Stephin Merritt, gay front man for the Magnetic Fields, told The New Gay: "I think the outing movement and the general propaganda that everyone ought to come out - I think that damaged a lot of people, actually. I think it’s clear from the careers of gay performers that the way to be successful is to come out later, not beforehand."
"I can understand the reluctance [to come out]; wanting to be successful in a system that doesn’t have a place for your identity," Niebur admitted. "There’s no niche in the Top 40 for an American gay pop singer. But it’s hard to tell someone that."
Judging by a number of recent examples in addition to Lambert, a niche for gay and lesbian musicians to break into the Billboard charts is not too inconceivable, even if successes have come in more peripheral spaces. Out lesbian singer Brandi Carlile has experienced remarkable crossover success, reaching #26 on the Billboard charts, owing largely to her emotive pop-folk’s exposure on Grey’s Anatomy. And, of course, Lady Gaga and Fergie casually announced their bisexuality in recent interviews.
In the world of "indie" - whatever that is defined as - innumerable out musicians have gained the praise of critics, music bloggers and ravenous fan bases alike, including violinist-composer Owen Pallett, pop-twins Tegan and Sara, and members of the Gossip (Beth Ditto), Grizzly Bear (Ed Droste) and Sigur Rós (Jonsi Birgisson). In some ways, these musician’s queer identity lends further appeal to the music’s expectedly more progressive audience.
"Jonsi being out and sort of bizarrely gay is part of [Sigur Rós’] appeal. It’s a real selling point, something that makes them cool," Niebur said, before looking back a bit further in history. "They’re doing what I wish R.E.M. would have done in the 1980s."
Rostam Batmanglij, guitarist, keyboardist and producer for the much-celebrated band Vampire Weekend, also recently joined the club of out musicians, coming out in an interview with Out published in late February.
Among the successful queer musicians listed above, sexuality is rarely, if ever, a subject of their music’s lyrical or thematic content. Pronouns are neutral or omitted in a sea of ambiguity, a point which likely has more to do with the music’s genre. Nonetheless, their creative decisions parlay a self-induced "straight-washing" effect.
Amy Phillips, senior news editor of Pitchfork, perhaps the most-dominant tastemaker of the blogosphere, said that, in the realm of indie rock, the issue of sexual orientation really isn’t much of an issue at all.
"Honestly, it doesn’t really come up in terms of how people evaluate or judge indie rock musicians," Phillips explained. "Sexuality itself is so minimal in their music, it seems that whether you’re gay or straight or whatever, it doesn’t come up. Overt sexuality seems so taboo, it’s not something that’s really accepted in any part of indie rock."
Owing to the mainstream exposure of artists like Lambert and Gaga, that may be changing. A song on Vampire Weekend’s Contra called "Diplomat’s Son" outlines a clear homo moment: "That night I smoked a joint / with my best friend / We found ourselves in bed / When I woke up he was gone."
The latest record of Hunx and his Punx, of Gravy Train!!!! fame, is titled Gay Singles and features a well-endowed man crotch in a banana hammock on its cover. And the not-safe-for-work music video for "Lust for Life" from Girls, an uber-hyped band on the indie circuit, is distinctly homoerotic, though the band does not identify as gay. But it remains to be seen whether blog buzz for such acts will translate to broader success.
Internationally, one does not have to look far to see out and proud musicians at the top of the pop charts. In Britain, Will Young, winner of the inaugural Pop Idol in 2002, continues to turn out hits on the pop charts. And Israeli singer Ivri Lider is one of the biggest-selling musicians in that country’s history.
One has to wonder how much longer it will be before that openness is exported to the States. But as more Lamberts come out, it would appear that openly queer musicians will continue to carve out a place for themselves in the music industry’s top echelon - a niche accepting styles that fall outside of the stereotypes of the acoustic guitar-yielding lesbian or the discobeat gay boy. But it is, as always, a matter ultimately left up to the artists themselves.
"The evil twins of cowardice and capitalism are a deadly coalition," Gill said. "It’ll only change when LGBT artists start standing up for themselves. They need to ask their managers: Are we really that desperate to be loved by everyone in the Midwest?"
Niebur is optimistic that the world of pop was not far off from mirroring the strides made in less mainstream musical circles.
"I do think it’s possible for that [Top 40] niche to be created, but it’s just not there now," Niebur said. "But Once Adam does it, other people can do it, too. And pop music is so dependent on novelty they won’t deny anything."
And so, gay singer Adam Lambert, our gay eyes - if not all of our ears - remain on you, but don’t let that burrow too far inside of that pretty head of yours. Queer musicians have a long history, a prolific present and a promising future.
"It attests to the increasing diversity we have not only in our own community but even in the mainstream that [audiences] can now sort of digest and have a vocabulary for different kinds of queer," Hubbs added. "They have to distinguish that there’s not just one kind of gay male pop star."
"If he’s successful, he’ll prove you don’t have to dissemble to succeed," Gill said. "But if gay lib taught us anything, it’s that we are our own heroes."
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=music&sc3=&id=102849&pg=4 | |
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