Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache: How Music Came Out

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On the cusp of stardom, a young David Bowie models a Michael Fish dress on the cover of a 1971 Curious - the ‘sex education magazine for men and women.’ Then in the 1960s, there was a short-lived phase of gay ‘party records’, to cater to the emerging gay market, based in Bob Mizer’s physique/beefcake magazines and literature that had escaped censorship, epitomised by the LA label Camp Records, who I’ve already mentioned. There were occasional references to homosexuals in odd places, but it wasn’t until Bowie made his “I’m gay” statement to Melody Maker in 1972, that performers truly articulated any aspect of their same-sex attraction. In 1990, Edwin Starr released a cover of the song as a 12-inch single, included in his album Where Is the Sound. [10]

It’s a comprehensive history of the queer pioneers of Popular Music. The story starts in the British music halls of the early 1900s and then the Weimar Cabaret and Harlem blues scenes of the 1920s, and unfurls across the decades, and musical genres, to the present day, with over 90 new interviews, to tell the story of how music came out. Aston fills out this chapter with stories about big names whose sexuality many of us take for granted but, like me, without particular foundation. I knew Long John Baldry had been out but not that he’d employed both Rod Stewart and Elton John. My mother and I collected all of classical composer Ned Rorem’s diaries, but I had no idea of The Paris Diary’s impact in 1966 as described by his (reprint) publisher, Da Capo Press: SINGER-SONGWRITER EMO" on the rise... What strikes me as a new genre has emerged... I've interviewed two justifiably leading exponents for MOJO, Lucy Dacus and, in this month's issue, Snail Mail (aka LIndsay Jordan). No web links, but if you buy the print editions, they're in the Rising section near the front. Whitburn, Joel (1982). Joel Whitburn's Bubbling Under the Hot 100 1959–1981. Record Research. p.14. ISBN 9780898200478. With the 40th anniversary tour of Horses in full swing, I have interviewed Patti Smith, John Cale about producing Horses, and written a guide to all Smtih's albums for for MOJO's October 2015 issue. Unrelated to Horses, a 'How to Buy' guide to Cocteau Twins and interviews with rising Northern Irish singer-songwriter SOAK and Alice Cooper about his Hollywood Vampires project also have my name on it this month

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And how could artists come out when homosexuality was against the law, and stigmatised even when the law wasn’t enforced as heavily as it once was? You’d have to put politics before music, and your career, if you were to be brave – as some were, but that’s why you never heard of many of them.

THROWING MUSES feature in MOJO (Feb 2020 edition). having first interviewed Kristin Hersh in 1986, and subequent years, it was an hnour and a pleasure to interview her again, and all the other Muses, for a (hopefully) comprehensive band history in MOJO. Plus, 'Buried Treasure' feature on Charity Ball, the second album by the trailblazing all-female force FANNY.Aston is a widely-published British music journalist and writer. His books include Pulp (MacMillan, 1985), Björkgraphy (Simon & Schuster, 1996), and Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD (The Friday Project/Haper Collins, 2013).