Ten of My Favourite Gay Pop Albums – Part One

Music has always been an important part of my life and I think this is generally true of all gay men. Growing up as a gay child and teenager I sought escape in the music I listened to – the hedonism of eighties synths, the metallic dance beats of the nineties, and latterly the coolly ironic pop of the new millennium. Despite being closeted during my younger years, pop music was always the one medium in which I could proudly wear my sexuality on my sleeve. Half the time my parents didn’t know what a song was about lyrically, they could only hear the irritating thud of the beat. I would increasingly seek out music by gay artists, whether they were ‘out’ at the time or not, and their words and accompanying music became the soundtrack of my life.

I suddenly became aware that I was not alone and that one day I would grow up and move out of the small town I lived in and live the kind of life I had always imagined for myself. Looking back, I view a number of albums as being absolute cornerstones in my life – bringing me solace, greater understanding about being gay, and something to dance to. I found my sexuality partially through the ten albums I have selected below, all by gay artists (except for one) who are unique talents that no others can emulate. Interestingly, all but three are British, which says a lot about how pop stars from these shores felt much more comfortable putting their sexuality out there. So, here are my ten favourites, in chronological order. What are yours? (Read part two here)

Bronski Beat – Age of Consent (1984)
Bronski Beat were way ahead of the curve when it comes to being ‘OUT’ in their music. Not only is their aptly named debut, Age of Consent, a symphony of hedonistic eighties dance beats, it is also fiercely political and confrontational. Their debut single and biggest hit, Smalltown Boy, tells the story of just about every gay teen in the Western world – bullied for being different, they leave for the bright lights of the city to find the kind of love that “will never be found at home.” It was a landmark song about being gay with a heart-wrenching vocal by lead singer, Jimmy Somerville, crooning sadly in his stunningly high falsetto over pulsating synths and hard beats. Second single, Why?, demands to be heard from the outset with charged lyrics; “Contempt in your eyes/As I turn to kiss his lips… Name me an illness/Call me a sin.” Love for Money tells the sad story of a rent boy over an insistent beat and Junk condemns the drug culture of the gay scene in the 1980s. With arresting covers of Gershwin’s It Aint Necessarily So and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love mashed-up with 1960’s hit Johnny Remember Me, this is an album that defined a generation of gay men living in the eighties.

Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy

The Smiths – The Smiths (1984)
The Smiths’ debut album is probably the most difficult to shoehorn into this list of gay albums, not least because lead singer Morrissey has always been cagey about his sexuality. However, no one can deny This Charming Man’s  gay credentials, a song that perfectly encapsulates the first flushes of young male love and its attendant disappointments; “Punctured bicycle/On a hillside desolate… When in this charming car/This charming man… said ‘it’s gruesome/That someone so handsome should care.’” It became an anthem  for forlorn and lovelorn gay teenagers in the eighties. The album has become a reluctant gay classic, with its fuzzy cover image of Joe Dallesandro (from Andy Warhol’s film Flesh, 1968) who was generally thought of as one of the most beautiful men of the time, although you cannot see his face – very subtle indeed. Morrissey mopes around on most of the songs, simultaneously wanting to be in love and being disgusted by sex, as on Still Ill; “Under the iron bridge we kissed/And although I ended up with sore lips /It just wasn’t like the old days anymore.” While Reel Around the Fountain tells the story of how Morrissey lost his virginity to a male prostitute: “It’s time the tale were told/Of how you took a child/And you made him old.” Melodic, depressing, and quintessentially gay.

The Smiths – This Charming Man

Madonna – The Immaculate Collection (1990)
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Madonna is not gay but her importance to the gay community cannot be doubted. She has done more than any artist to help change attitudes towards gays and lesbians and has been a keen supporter of AIDS charities. This was particularly the case in 1990-1991, with the release of her first greatest hits compilation and her documentary, In Bed With Madonna (1991) filmed around The Blond Ambition Tour. The documentary featured a gaggle of gay dancers bitching with one another, French kissing, attending an AIDS rally, and quoting from Paris Is Burning (1990). This was the album that cemented my lifelong love of Madonna and was also like the tipping point between child- and teenager-hood as I discovered my sexuality. Vogue was an anthem for all gay men – a hedonistic celebration of clubbing which looked back to the campy Golden Era of Hollywood. Justify My Love, a sexual romp across Europe, features a video with lesbian kisses and Tony ward being generally hot. Express Yourself has been adopted as a mantra for gay men to be who they are. But it is Live To Tell, a narrative about someone suffering with the burden of a huge secret, that all closeted gays could instantly relate to: “Hope I live to tell/The secret I have learned, till then/It will burn inside of me.”

Madonna – Live To Tell

K.D. Lang – All You Can Eat (1995)
Throughout the nineties, one female artist got all the lesbian attention: Ani DiFranco. With her gnarly folk rock and flirtation with androgyny, lesbians worshipped her, even though despite attempts at ambiguity  she was never a lesbian. K.D. Lang was often ignored, perhaps because lesbians considered her to be ‘too dykey’. Sad really because Lang is by far the superior artist – a voice like warm maple syrup, a tremendous gift for melody, and a capricious playfulness in her lyric writing. Her third solo album, Ingénue (1992) turned her into a star with the hit single Constant Craving, but it is her fourth album All You Can Eat that established her as a brilliant songwriter who put lesbian sensuality to the fore. The entire album, with its slant towards contemporary pop with a nod to country, has an imploring, pleading tone to an unnamed lover. On Maybe, she croons into a lover’s ear; “Maybe I am crazy/Maybe I’m confused/Maybe I’ve misconstrued/Maybe I…/Love you”. On Get Some, she demands for sex; “Go on, get some/Take all that you’re given”. On Sexuality, she celebrates lesbian love; “Release yourself upon me/Free the hounds of chastity/Unleash your sexuality on me.” From the suggestive album title to the unequivocally gay lyrics, this is album is far sexier than anything DiFranco has recorded.

K.D. Lang – Sexuality

Boy George – Cheapness and Beauty (1995)
After Culture Club’s hiatus in the mid-eighties, Boy George released a number of fairly forgettable solo albums before becoming a tabloid staple for his drug addiction. Time away from the public eye for much of the early nineties did him well, as he regrouped and recharged, wrote his brilliant autobiography Take It Like A Man (1995) and accompanying album, Cheapness and Beauty. George was in a retrospective mood as a result of writing his book and the resulting album is full of Bowie-inspired glam-rock stompers and chillingly beautiful acoustic ballads that dealt explicitly with his sexuality. On God Don’t Hold a Grudge, he berates his parents and their plans for him as a boy; “Father it’s too late/To make a man of me/I love against the gods/But I don’t scare too easily.” Unfinished Business recalls his feelings about his relationship with Culture Club drummer, Jon Moss; “I hear you married some Danish girl/I’m so glad that it wasn’t me/’Cause you’re like so many of those boys I’ve known/ You break your promise easily.” On Same Thing in Reverse, he takes to task anyone who doubts that love between men is any different from straight love; “Your brother doesn’t understand/How you could love another man/Your poor father thinks we’re cursed/It’s the same thing in reverse”. Il Adore, the album closer, is a paean to a friend who died of AIDS; “Mother clutches the head of her dying son/Anger and tears, so many things to feel/No one mentions the unmentionable, but everybody understands”. It is the album that will come to define his solo career.

Boy George – Same Thing in Reverse