At the turn of the decade, gay male and non-binary pop stars seemed poised to take pop music by storm. Lil Nas X broke out with Old Town Road – which blew up on TikTok, sold about 18.5m copies and remains tied with Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) and Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You as the longest-running No 1 single in US history – and artists such as Sam Smith, Troye Sivan and Olly Alexander from Years & Years were all singing about gay love and sex.
But the initial promise has stalled. Lil Nas X’s attempts to build on his smash debut album have fizzled, and he is publicly dealing with mental health issues. In October, Khalid released his first album since being outed by his ex last year but only sold 10,000 copies in the first week in the US. A previous album, 2019’s Free Spirit, sold some 200,000 copies in the first week and led to him briefly dethroning Ariana Grande as the most listened to artist on Spotify.
That the rest of the music isn’t all that good?
This pushes some artists into behind-the-scenes roles as writers and producers, such as MNEK, who says: “Major labels aren’t searching for an openly gay pop star. They are searching for something that sells and is palatable for families and middle England.”
This also works and works even if we reverse it. The vast majority are not gay so people who sell to hte vast majority are not going to be talking about – say – minority sports like gay sex. You know, it’s a business?
“They are searching for something that sells and is palatable for families and middle England.”
Will Young?
Perhaps people buy music they like so the sexual orientation of the artist doesn’t matter?
Whenever I hear this kind of civilisational self – indulgence My first response is to tell these partisans (at least those who aren’t wearing pro Palestinian symbols) to be careful what you wish for. Neither Hamas nor ISIS are big on Alphabet soup in general.
“Major labels aren’t searching for an openly gay pop star. They are searching for something that sells and is palatable for families and middle England.”
Oh, yes, Middle England never likes gay performers, do they? Noel Coward, John Gielgud, Ian McKellan, Stephen Fry, Elton John … No, middle England won’t watch or listen to anything any of that lot do, no sir.
You forgot Danny La Rue. Kenneth Williams. Liberace.
I had to stop somewhere!
Oh, and of course, David Bowie. His androgyny did him no harm, did it?
And Ivor Novello.
“Oooh, you lucky boy!”
And the very recently late Stanley Baxter, RIP.
Really? You live and learn.
Major labels aren’t searching for an openly gay pop star. They are searching for something that sells and is palatable for families and middle England.”
Well, duh. Where do their profits come from otherwise?
I’ve not listened to anything from the people mentioned in the article. I suspect I’m not missing much.
“Lil Nas X’s attempts to build on his smash debut album have fizzled, and he is publicly dealing with mental health issues.” Are they Big Issues?
It isn’t the gayness, it’s the preachiness. Elton John and the Pet Shop Boys seem to be able to sell records and fill concert venues but guess what… they don’t write songs about the intricacies of bumming or how other people are evil because they aren’t whatever the perversion-du-jour is.
Turns out, a little bit of trangressiveness sells – but when you start talking about trashing the whole edifice even the kids get turned off.
There’s Beethoven, the Beatles, and Bix Beiderbecke, so why bother with all this shite?
In related news, the great Stanley Baxter has gone. He was 99.
Interesting that fascist homophobe Trump and his MAGA team love YMCA.
Today’s gay music doesn’t sell because it is no longer based on a cause and the tunes are sh!t.
“This pushes some artists into behind-the-scenes roles as writers and producers, such as MNEK, who says: “Major labels aren’t searching for an openly gay pop star. They are searching for something that sells and is palatable for families and middle England.”
As others have said, this is bollocks nowadays. Pop music isn’t the huge cultural thing it once was. The kids don’t care that much. They listen to anything from the past 60 years. There aren’t the teen pinups like there were, who you wanted to pretend were straight because teenage girls fancied them.
The other thing, I don’t think anyone is being pushed into writing and production. It’s more that you can make a fuck load of money from that without being stalked. You write and produce for other people. It’s a return to the old Brill Building, Motown, Phil Spector thing.
Most of the money in being a pop star is tours and endorsements now. No-one wants to pay you shit if all you do is sing on a record. There are two dozen girls singing in pubs in every town who are good enough to do that. You only get rich from that if you start a fashion line or become the face of Pepsi.
More to the point, writing and production is where the money is and always was. Being an ordinary band member or session muso? Mug’s game.
This pushes some artists into behind-the-scenes roles as writers and producers to decide whether they should still be gay.
After chart-topping fame with Years & Years, Alexander’s debut solo album, this year’s Polari, could only peak at No 17 in the UK, with no charting singles apart from Dizzy, the UK’s 2024 Eurovision entry, which reached No 42. He tells me that being out in the “major label machine … felt like I was trying to pull off an impossible magic trick”. When it comes to selling gay music to the public, he says, “men explicitly loving men is so threatening to the status quo and patriarchy, which makes it harder to gain mainstream support”
His second album flopped because of the Patriarchy, and not because of the clone he had made so he could fellate himself.
Often the Superbowl halftime show is a lagging indicator of pop stardom. The artists they select are usually past their Best By date. This is seen in their selection of Bad Bunny as this season’s Superbowl entertainment.
One of the great things about being divorced is I haven’t been forced to watch a Superbowl halftime show in 30 years.
Gamecock assumes the show is for all the wives who have been forced to watch football.
My wife doesn’t watch football (soccer) except when I shout “It’s a penalty shoot-out”. We then compete to see who can correctly guess which of the shooters is so nervous that he’ll probably miss.
We did use to love going to the football (rugby) together to watch the Borders Sevens competitions. She once astonished a group of supporters of one of the English clubs by saying dismissively “So much for their zonal defence.”
Gels having views on rugger tactics! I say, what is the world coming to?
Any ‘creative’ person, whether a painter, film-maker, singer-songwriter or an author, is going to hit a ceiling if their material is dominated by projecting an ‘identity’. Besides, if you are doing for the love of it then commercial success shouldn’t be key marker of your personal success, and if commercial success is the key marker you’re looking for then you have to temper your output to what others want.
A few years ago there was a fad for everybody to be ‘non-binary’ or ‘fluid’ or other such transient fashions, but the problem is once the novelty wears off a fad, it’s not going to be salient any longer. Doesn’t mean they have to stop being those things, it’s just that they’re not going to get the same attention for being those things. The worst thing for someone whose whole shtick is how oppressed they are, is to be ignored!
People should keep their gender fluids to themselves.
The only one of these weirdos I recognise is Sam Smith, and his singing should be prosecuted at the Hague.
Just look at the silly fat fucker. Spud in drag.
Yes, tight sparkly leotards are not for people of Greggs, darling
“if commercial success is the key marker you’re looking for then you have to temper your output to what others want.”
Yeah. This is true in all sorts of niches. You never hear Americans complain about this. Scorsese will make a movie like Silence, about 17th century Jesuit priests in Japan. I liked it, but it’s not exactly a lot of fun. Which barely anyone went to see. But he doesn’t bitch about it. He and almost everyone involved (Adam Driver, Andrew Garfield, Liam Neesom) barely got paid. But he would have been well paid for Wolf of Wall Street, like Adam Driver no doubt got a lot of money for Star Wars movies.
if commercial success is the key marker you’re looking for then you have to temper your output to what others want.
Just like any other business, in fact. Funny how people don’t realise that. It’s the conflation with “art” and “fun”.
>The vast majority do literally zero exercise so people who sell to hte vast majority are not going to be talking about – say – minority sports like football
I think there’s probably some nuance to be had here.
I remember lots of people who aren’t gay liking Tatu, for example.
Fancying girls who dress as schoolgirls and sing about lesbian lust is a minority sport.
And should get you put on a register.
tAtU or whatever had an unfortunately sleazy vibe even by the standards of late 90’s/early Millennium Eurotrash.
However now those girls are in their 40’s, so I include this recent photograph purely for research purposes you see.
Thank you Steve.
That is a genuine Public Service.
There seems to have been a certain amount of work carried out there.
If only there were openly gay pop stars that were successful in the history of pop.
Oh, wait, there are. Like, say Boy George. Who made a killing dressing like he did, admitting he was gay, but – and here’s the crucial thing – making pop music for everyone!
Other than the makeup (which really wasn’t that far out there in the 1980’s alongside hair metal) he didn’t run around with songs about how much he liked dick.
He even gave a name to a vital piece of computer equipment : the Gender Bender.
Pop history is littered with one hit wonders as YouTube keeps trying to remind me for some reason. *shrug*.