Think you were a bit more innocent than everyone else coriander.
When Culture Club broke big, Boy George was persistently marketed as asexual - there was that famous 'I prefer a cup of tea to sex'-type quote. I'd say there was a kind of tacit acceptance that he was gay - but he'd never refer to it and so it never really became an issue. And, let's face it, Culture Club would never have sold shedloads internationally, especially in the US, if George had been totally open.
I think the watershed year for gay men in pop has to be 1984, where Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Bronski Beat were completely upfront and unapologetic about who they were - and once the music industry saw Frankie's sales figures, they stopped caring quite so much. ;-)
Bells, choir or bagpipes. The standard took kit for an aspiring Christmass hit!
Not if you are Slade, with the biggest Christmas hit going.
Now why am I talking like this in February?
Maybe Abba missed a trick waiting until new year 1979 to release Chiquitita, rather than putting it out at Christmas 1978 a few weeks earlier, as many seem to equate it with the festive season. I never have myself.
Looks like tomorrow will be DLT-Day, and the potential for unlocking of a lot more TOTP 1979 editions this year.
Not if you are Slade, with the biggest Christmas hit going.
Now why am I talking like this in February?
Maybe Abba missed a trick waiting until new year 1979 to release Chiquitita, rather than putting it out at Christmas 1978 a few weeks earlier, as many seem to equate it with the festive season. I never have myself.
Looks like tomorrow will be DLT-Day, and the potential for unlocking of a lot more TOTP 1979 editions this year.
Rich, there was a song called "Do They Know It's Christmas" which has been Number 1 at Christmas on three separate occasions, with the original being the biggest selling single ever at the time. Surprised you've never heard of it........;-)
Think you were a bit more innocent than everyone else coriander.
I wish I had been more innocent. As Servalan indicates above, Boy George did not exactly come out and kept on going about preferring a cup of tea to sex.:o
I was in the States and saw them in the States. It was obvious on stage that he was gay as he was rowing with the boyf in the band, but he was presented in the States as a UK eccentric and pretty harmless.:)
The Grammy Awards for 1984 were significant. There several British acts adopted gender ambiguous appearances including Annie Lennox. It was then and not before that we all began to suspect Boy George, but no one actually knew until much later whenever he "came out" (no idea when that was.:)
I wish I had been more innocent. As Servalan indicates above, Boy George did not exactly come out and kept on going about preferring a cup of tea to sex.:o
I was in the States and saw them in the States. It was obvious on stage that he was gay as he was rowing with the boyf in the band, but he was presented in the States as a UK eccentric and pretty harmless.:)
The Grammy Awards for 1984 were significant. There several British acts adopted gender ambiguous appearances including Annie Lennox. It was then and not before that we all began to suspect Boy George, but no one actually knew until much later whenever he "came out" (no idea when that was.:)
If Boy George had been actively out as gay in the USA I imagine his career would have sunk before it got going over there, rather regrettably. However there was no doubt in my mind when I first saw him on TOTP that he was gay, even to a sheltered 13 year old boy such as myself. Not that it ever mattered a jot to me. It never should. Unfortunately even to this day the United States is backward in this regard, which is rather disappointing in the least.
Freddie Mercury, who we'll soon be seeing on TOTP 1979 with Don't Stop Me Now, is more intriguing to me. Not sure when I realised he was gay, but it was not too long before he passed I'm sure. He never even admitted his aids until the day before he succumbed to it. Was he widely known to be gay at this point in 1979? Even at Live Aid six years later I'm not sure I would have known. But it doesn't matter whether gay, straight or bi. This is not what defines a human being first and foremost to me.
If Boy George had been actively out as gay in the USA I imagine his career would have sunk before it got going over there, rather regrettably. However there was no doubt in my mind when I first saw him on TOTP that he was gay, even to a sheltered 13 year old boy such as myself. Not that it ever mattered a jot to me. It never should. Unfortunately even to this day the United States is backward in this regard, which is rather disappointing in the least.
Freddie Mercury, who we'll soon be seeing on TOTP 1979 with Don't Stop Me Now, is more intriguing to me. Not sure when I realised he was gay, but it was not too long before he passed I'm sure. He never even admitted his aids until the day before he succumbed to it. Was he widely known to be gay at this point in 1979? Even at Live Aid six years later I'm not sure I would have known. But it doesn't matter whether gay, straight or bi. This is not what defines a human being first and foremost to me.
I don't think Freddie Mercury ever formally announced that he was gay, I think it was just assumed by some certainly with his camp behaviour on stage and in interviews. To be honest I think he came across more camp on stage in the 70s than he did on stage in the 80s. But the "campness" in the 70s complimented the glam rock image anyway so I don't think many people would have noticed he was gay. He was a very private person and not a lot is known about his private life.
I wasn't around through Freddie's lifetime so I don't know how I would have perceived him had I'd seen him when he was alive.
I don't think Freddie Mercury ever formally announced that he was gay, I think it was just assumed by some certainly with his camp behaviour on stage and in interviews. To be honest I think he came across more camp on stage in the 70s than he did on stage in the 80s. But the "campness" in the 70s complimented the glam rock image anyway so I don't think many people would have noticed he was gay. He was a very private person and not a lot is known about his private life.
I wasn't around through Freddie's lifetime so I don't know how I would have perceived him had I'd seen him when he was alive.
I do admire your final sentence, sexuality shouldn't define who you are as a human being.
I saw on the news this morning that "Queen's Greatest Hits" has become the first LP / CD to sell 6 million copies in the UK, and that it is owned by one in four households.
Freddie Mercury, who we'll soon be seeing on TOTP 1979 with Don't Stop Me Now, is more intriguing to me. Not sure when I realised he was gay, but it was not too long before he passed I'm sure. He never even admitted his aids until the day before he succumbed to it. Was he widely known to be gay at this point in 1979? Even at Live Aid six years later I'm not sure I would have known. But it doesn't matter whether gay, straight or bi. This is not what defines a human being first and foremost to me.
Err, In think the name of the band was a pretty good clue as to Freddie's sexuality
The first time I saw Culture Club, I wasn't sure if George was a boy or a girl what with the hat, the long hair and the dress.
I do wonder, looking back at the old Wham videos, how we all missed that George Michael was gay
But I suppose we were surrounded by camp, it was so fashionable, we didn't really think anything of it.
I do admire your final sentence, sexuality shouldn't define who you are as a human being.
Well, no. But it helps to know things about people, so that we can understand what makes them tick. I don't have any time for the "Does it matter?" brigade.
I don't think Freddie Mercury ever formally announced that he was gay, I think it was just assumed by some certainly with his camp behaviour on stage and in interviews. To be honest I think he came across more camp on stage in the 70s than he did on stage in the 80s. But the "campness" in the 70s complimented the glam rock image anyway so I don't think many people would have noticed he was gay. He was a very private person and not a lot is known about his private life.
I wasn't around through Freddie's lifetime so I don't know how I would have perceived him had I'd seen him when he was alive.
I do admire your final sentence, sexuality shouldn't define who you are as a human being.
Mercury was a contradiction in many ways - performer extraordinaire, host of lavish and outrageous parties yet very guarded about himself. There was a BBC documentary about him recently that had some archive interview footage which highlights that.
It was also a different world when he rose to fame and the fixation on celebrities' private lives was nothing like as intense as it is now. There were genuine stars - Mercury, Bowie, Bolan, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Prince - and it was what we didn't know about them that made them so alluring and intriguing. Unlike the latest X Factor reject having a tantrum on Twitter or Cheryl Cole's new tattoo …
Mercury of course did come out, the day before he died in 1991. What a drama that was; perhaps as he would have liked it RIP.
You have to wonder what a man who clearly was not entirely comfortable with who he was would make of the esteem he is held in now, and the status history has accorded him - when everyone knows a lot more about him than they did when he was alive.
Conversely, would Mercury have been such a great artist without the conflict and contradictions in his life?
You have to wonder what a man who clearly was not entirely comfortable with who he was would make of the esteem he is held in now, and the status history has accorded him - when everyone knows a lot more about him than they did when he was alive.
Conversely, would Mercury have been such a great artist without the conflict and contradictions in his life?
I think it is true to say that Mercury (and Queen) are generally more respected and held in high regard now than when Mercury was alive. I certainly don't think he'd be entirely comfortable with people knowing more about his private - even private home videos have somehow made their way onto YouTube! He had a public persona which was outgoing and confident but privately apparently he was quite shy and quiet. Would he have been a great artist without these contradictions? I really don't know, I do think some of the songs he wrote were influenced by events in his life (Somebody To Love, perhaps even Bohemian Rhapsody in relation to his struggle with his sexuality at the time; latter Queen tracks were influenced by Mercury's illness) so we may not have had them. It is an interesting question.
Freddie Mercury is for me the greatest frontman of all time and a brilliant singer and songwriter - I'm a massive Queen fan so not too biased ;-)
You have to wonder what a man who clearly was not entirely comfortable with who he was would make of the esteem he is held in now, and the status history has accorded him - when everyone knows a lot more about him than they did when he was alive.
Conversely, would Mercury have been such a great artist without the conflict and contradictions in his life?
One wonders indeed whether such an artist today would be possible where being gay is being seen more and more as normal. Mercury was an extraordinary character, clearly loved by those who knew him and possessed of a charisma that made him an exceptional star.:)
I do believe that his fierce guarding of his privacy was related to his being gay; the habit of secrecy that many gay men acquired in those days, despite his outward flamboyance. Coming out in the 1980s was not an option at a time when teachers were banned from teaching about gay relations as "a pretended lifestyle.">:(
I am looking forward to Don't Stop Me Now, a song that would seem to be about Mercury and a classic these days.:)
While we are on the topic of Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor have apparently been working on material with recently discovered recordings of Mercury as well as his duet with Michael Jackson - so we could have some new Queen material later this year which is very exciting for me.
Looking forward to seeing 'Don't Stop Me Now' on Top of the Pops in a few weeks although Queen wouldn't appear in the studio again until 1982 performing 'Las Palabras De Amor (The Words of Love)' - one of their lesser known tracks but a decent one, it was released when Queen's popularity was waning following their foray into disco on 'Hot Space' - probably why they ended up performing in the studio! It's an interesting performance, Mercury and Taylor in tuxedos (Mercury wearing trainers) while May and Deacon just dressed normally. Hopefully the repeats will get as far as 1982!
Coming out in the 1980s was not an option at a time when teachers were banned from teaching about gay relations as "a pretended lifestyle.">:(
ah but coming out in the 1980s was an option, for stars and regular people. Bronski Beat, Tom Robinson, Communards, Andy Bell, Holly Johnson... all out and proud at the time, even Boy George had finally come out by 1988, as had one MP (Chris Smith).
But these were the generation younger than Mercury, Kenny Everett, etc. And Mercury hadn't been politicised around his sexuality like Tom Robinson, Bell or Somerville. Also you could argue Mercury had far more to lose, having become a global star in countries with hostile attitudes to homosexuality. And he had the rest of the band to consider (not to mention a very conservative family).
He was very typical of many gay men of that time: not 'out' to his family, or professionally and resigned to living a public life where his sexuality wasn't discussed and a private life of boyfriends, gay friends and an active life on the gay scene. And of course in those days the media weren't as intrusive as they are now. These days a star's private life is considerd fair game for speculation, innuendo and sometimes plain old 'outing'.
While we are on the topic of Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor have apparently been working on material with recently discovered recordings of Mercury as well as his duet with Michael Jackson - so we could have some new Queen material later this year which is very exciting for me.
Looking forward to seeing 'Don't Stop Me Now' on Top of the Pops in a few weeks although Queen wouldn't appear in the studio again until 1982 performing 'Las Palabras De Amor (The Words of Love)' - one of their lesser known tracks but a decent one, it was released when Queen's popularity was waning following their foray into disco on 'Hot Space' - probably why they ended up performing in the studio! It's an interesting performance, Mercury and Taylor in tuxedos (Mercury wearing trainers) while May and Deacon just dressed normally. Hopefully the repeats will get as far as 1982!
I had no idea they actually performed in the TOTP studio in 1982 with a single from that album. I have seen an appearance they made on the BBC1 early evening news magazine programme, Nationwide, at the same time in 1982 while promoting this album. If that album had naturally been flying off the shelves like many of their other ones I'm not sure they would have done that. I think Freddie was even smoking in the studio while being interviewed! How times have changed in such a relatively short time. At the same time, on 5th June 1982, they did their massive Milton Keynes Bowl gig about 4 miles from me. It was the hottest day of 1982 that day. Clips of the gig are available on You Tube. The wind was clearly not blowing strong enough in the right direction that day as I heard nothing, unlike with many other major Bowl concerts.
ah but coming out in the 1980s was an option, for stars and regular people. Bronski Beat, Tom Robinson, Communards, Andy Bell, Holly Johnson... all out and proud at the time, even Boy George had finally come out by 1988, as had one MP (Chris Smith).
The people of the Somerset levels clearly don't think that Chris Smith has come out enough!
Comments
Always reminds me of a Bank Manager.
When Culture Club broke big, Boy George was persistently marketed as asexual - there was that famous 'I prefer a cup of tea to sex'-type quote. I'd say there was a kind of tacit acceptance that he was gay - but he'd never refer to it and so it never really became an issue. And, let's face it, Culture Club would never have sold shedloads internationally, especially in the US, if George had been totally open.
I think the watershed year for gay men in pop has to be 1984, where Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Bronski Beat were completely upfront and unapologetic about who they were - and once the music industry saw Frankie's sales figures, they stopped caring quite so much. ;-)
He's certainly some sort of banker.
Now why am I talking like this in February?
Maybe Abba missed a trick waiting until new year 1979 to release Chiquitita, rather than putting it out at Christmas 1978 a few weeks earlier, as many seem to equate it with the festive season. I never have myself.
Looks like tomorrow will be DLT-Day, and the potential for unlocking of a lot more TOTP 1979 editions this year.
Sure, those elements aren't compulsory, but if you make a point of including a reference to Christmas followed by bells .....
Just saying.
Rich, there was a song called "Do They Know It's Christmas" which has been Number 1 at Christmas on three separate occasions, with the original being the biggest selling single ever at the time. Surprised you've never heard of it........;-)
I wish I had been more innocent. As Servalan indicates above, Boy George did not exactly come out and kept on going about preferring a cup of tea to sex.:o
I was in the States and saw them in the States. It was obvious on stage that he was gay as he was rowing with the boyf in the band, but he was presented in the States as a UK eccentric and pretty harmless.:)
The Grammy Awards for 1984 were significant. There several British acts adopted gender ambiguous appearances including Annie Lennox. It was then and not before that we all began to suspect Boy George, but no one actually knew until much later whenever he "came out" (no idea when that was.:)
Not if you were Slade, with their biggest Christmas hit going. ;-)
If Boy George had been actively out as gay in the USA I imagine his career would have sunk before it got going over there, rather regrettably. However there was no doubt in my mind when I first saw him on TOTP that he was gay, even to a sheltered 13 year old boy such as myself. Not that it ever mattered a jot to me. It never should. Unfortunately even to this day the United States is backward in this regard, which is rather disappointing in the least.
Freddie Mercury, who we'll soon be seeing on TOTP 1979 with Don't Stop Me Now, is more intriguing to me. Not sure when I realised he was gay, but it was not too long before he passed I'm sure. He never even admitted his aids until the day before he succumbed to it. Was he widely known to be gay at this point in 1979? Even at Live Aid six years later I'm not sure I would have known. But it doesn't matter whether gay, straight or bi. This is not what defines a human being first and foremost to me.
I don't think Freddie Mercury ever formally announced that he was gay, I think it was just assumed by some certainly with his camp behaviour on stage and in interviews. To be honest I think he came across more camp on stage in the 70s than he did on stage in the 80s. But the "campness" in the 70s complimented the glam rock image anyway so I don't think many people would have noticed he was gay. He was a very private person and not a lot is known about his private life.
I wasn't around through Freddie's lifetime so I don't know how I would have perceived him had I'd seen him when he was alive.
I noted some similarity between Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford's outfit on Thursday's Top of the Pops and the leather outfit Freddie wore on stage in 1978/1979 http://31.media.tumblr.com/7462567748a4f2b456a4764281ba66ca/tumblr_msqahgO0Iu1rhml8lo1_400.png
I do admire your final sentence, sexuality shouldn't define who you are as a human being.
I saw on the news this morning that "Queen's Greatest Hits" has become the first LP / CD to sell 6 million copies in the UK, and that it is owned by one in four households.
Err, In think the name of the band was a pretty good clue as to Freddie's sexuality
I do wonder, looking back at the old Wham videos, how we all missed that George Michael was gay
But I suppose we were surrounded by camp, it was so fashionable, we didn't really think anything of it.
Well, no. But it helps to know things about people, so that we can understand what makes them tick. I don't have any time for the "Does it matter?" brigade.
Mercury was a contradiction in many ways - performer extraordinaire, host of lavish and outrageous parties yet very guarded about himself. There was a BBC documentary about him recently that had some archive interview footage which highlights that.
It was also a different world when he rose to fame and the fixation on celebrities' private lives was nothing like as intense as it is now. There were genuine stars - Mercury, Bowie, Bolan, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Prince - and it was what we didn't know about them that made them so alluring and intriguing. Unlike the latest X Factor reject having a tantrum on Twitter or Cheryl Cole's new tattoo …
Freddie was the greatest frontman there has ever been...just my opinion.
Robert Plant a close second.
Yes, in retrospect.:)
I share your view here. And how different they were/are.:o
You have to wonder what a man who clearly was not entirely comfortable with who he was would make of the esteem he is held in now, and the status history has accorded him - when everyone knows a lot more about him than they did when he was alive.
Conversely, would Mercury have been such a great artist without the conflict and contradictions in his life?
I think it is true to say that Mercury (and Queen) are generally more respected and held in high regard now than when Mercury was alive. I certainly don't think he'd be entirely comfortable with people knowing more about his private - even private home videos have somehow made their way onto YouTube! He had a public persona which was outgoing and confident but privately apparently he was quite shy and quiet. Would he have been a great artist without these contradictions? I really don't know, I do think some of the songs he wrote were influenced by events in his life (Somebody To Love, perhaps even Bohemian Rhapsody in relation to his struggle with his sexuality at the time; latter Queen tracks were influenced by Mercury's illness) so we may not have had them. It is an interesting question.
Freddie Mercury is for me the greatest frontman of all time and a brilliant singer and songwriter - I'm a massive Queen fan so not too biased ;-)
One wonders indeed whether such an artist today would be possible where being gay is being seen more and more as normal. Mercury was an extraordinary character, clearly loved by those who knew him and possessed of a charisma that made him an exceptional star.:)
I do believe that his fierce guarding of his privacy was related to his being gay; the habit of secrecy that many gay men acquired in those days, despite his outward flamboyance. Coming out in the 1980s was not an option at a time when teachers were banned from teaching about gay relations as "a pretended lifestyle.">:(
I am looking forward to Don't Stop Me Now, a song that would seem to be about Mercury and a classic these days.:)
Looking forward to seeing 'Don't Stop Me Now' on Top of the Pops in a few weeks although Queen wouldn't appear in the studio again until 1982 performing 'Las Palabras De Amor (The Words of Love)' - one of their lesser known tracks but a decent one, it was released when Queen's popularity was waning following their foray into disco on 'Hot Space' - probably why they ended up performing in the studio! It's an interesting performance, Mercury and Taylor in tuxedos (Mercury wearing trainers) while May and Deacon just dressed normally. Hopefully the repeats will get as far as 1982!
ah but coming out in the 1980s was an option, for stars and regular people. Bronski Beat, Tom Robinson, Communards, Andy Bell, Holly Johnson... all out and proud at the time, even Boy George had finally come out by 1988, as had one MP (Chris Smith).
But these were the generation younger than Mercury, Kenny Everett, etc. And Mercury hadn't been politicised around his sexuality like Tom Robinson, Bell or Somerville. Also you could argue Mercury had far more to lose, having become a global star in countries with hostile attitudes to homosexuality. And he had the rest of the band to consider (not to mention a very conservative family).
He was very typical of many gay men of that time: not 'out' to his family, or professionally and resigned to living a public life where his sexuality wasn't discussed and a private life of boyfriends, gay friends and an active life on the gay scene. And of course in those days the media weren't as intrusive as they are now. These days a star's private life is considerd fair game for speculation, innuendo and sometimes plain old 'outing'.
The people of the Somerset levels clearly don't think that Chris Smith has come out enough!