Tag Archives: gay artists

Raze, Break 4 Love, 1988. A sexy classic of the early days of house music, Break 4 Love was a global smash, reaching #1 on the U.S. dance charts and topping out at #28 on the UK pop chart. Vocalist Keith Thompson had a falling out with producer Vaughan Mason (whom you might recall from his 1979 roller-disco hit Bounce, …

Baltimora, Tarzan Boy, 1985. Baltimora was a six-man band from Italy fronted by Irish citizen Jimmy McShane, whom many wrongly believed was the entire act. McShane was not a musician or singer and was selected for band based on his flamboyant appearance and dancing abilities. In the video for Tarzan Boy, McShane is lip-syncing the vocals of Baltimora’s Maurizio Bassi. …

Man 2 Man Meets Man Parrish, Male Stripper, 1986. Brothers Miki and Paul Zone, formerly of the ’70s queercore innovators The Fast (who were known as “the male Plasmatics”), teamed up with NYC’s electro pioneer Man Parrish to create this homage to gay strippers, taking it all the way to #4 on the British singles chart and even performing it …

Elton John, Elton’s Song, 1981. Co-written by Elton and Tom Glad To Be Gay Robinson, this song about a gay school boy with a crush on a classmate was banned in several countries due to “homosexual content.” This accompanying video, which may evoke Bronksi Beat’s Smalltown Boy for you, was never aired at the time, although tabloids screamed “Elton’s Gay …

I’m still not feeling it.

Joe Jackson, Real Men, 1982. This track about coming out, bullying, and machismo was not a radio hit for Jackson despite getting surprisingly heavy rotation on MTV. There was some small controversy about censoring the word “faggot”, but as I recall it was gay activists that insisted that it should remain. Jackson’s never officially come out, writing in his autobiography …

Erasure, A Little Respect, 1988. Although Erasure has had a whopping 35 Top 40 hits in the UK, including 15 that made the Top 10, this one was one of their only three singles to be pop smashes in the U.S., topping out at #14 a few months after their biggest stateside hit, Chains Of Love, peaked at #12. On …

– A revival of Angels In America will come to Off Broadway’s Signature Theater next year as part of their year-long tribute to its Pulitzer-winning playwright, Tony Kushner. – World premiere: A musical version of Green Day’s landmark album, American Idiot, has its first preview at the Roda Theater in Berkeley tonight. Get tickets here. – The annual free Broadway …

Pet Shop Boys, Domino Dancing, 1988. Last night at NYC’s Hammerstein Ballroom, Pet Shop Boys wove this, their lone foray into freestyle, into a fantastic medley capped by a surprisingly wonderful cover of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida. (Please PSB, put that out commercially.) Domino Dancing was produced by the then-red hot Miami freestyle king Lewis Martinee, who gave us Expose’ …

Courtesy of Spin Cycle, this week’s Swag Tuesday prize is two tickets to A Boy And His Soul, a new play written and performed by Colman Domingo, recently of Passing Strange and LOGO’s Big Gay Sketch Show. Soul is in watching your parents sell the house you grew up in. In the kitchen rotary phone cord your sister stretched out …

Village People, Sex Over The Phone, 1985. After a four album downward spiral that began with 1980’s Can’t Stop The Music, Village People’s ninth and final album scored a moderate hit with this tribute to two new phenomenons, commercial phone sex lines and safe sex. Ray Stephens made his only appearance as lead singer on this album, replacing Ray Simpson …

Klaus Nomi, Total Eclipse, 1981. Openly gay German-born opera singer cum East Village avante-gardist Klaus Nomi totally owned the music documentary Urgh! A Music War with this performance. I was reminded of this after JMG reader BStewart23 mentioned the liner notes on Man Parrish’s first album (mentioned here on Tuesday), as Nomi also contributed vocals to that release. He was …

Fred Schneider & The Shake Society, Monster, 1984. Fred’s only solo hit, Monster includes B-girl Kate Pierson on vocals and P-Funk legend Bernie Worrell on keyboards. Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club member Tina Weymouth and artist Keith Haring both do cameo appearances in this clip. (Can anybody ID the drag queen?) The rest of this album wasn’t so great, other than …

Man Parrish, Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop), 1982. What many consider to be the single most influential hip-hop/electro track ever was created created by an openly gay guy. (I’d also put Soulsonic Force’s Planet Rock and Hashim’s Al-Naafiysh on that short list.) This clip is very, very silly and one might guess shared a make-up artist with the folks …

Sylvester, Someone Like You, 1986. Not my favorite Sylvester track and definitely not one of his better live vocal performances, but this clip is worthwhile for the post-song chat he has with Joan Rivers, who was subbing for Johnny Carson on New Year’s Eve. Rivers fawns over Sylvester’s jewelry and he drops the bomb (on national TV! In 1986!) that …

Pete Shelley, Homosapien, 1981. The BBC (but not MTV) banned this first solo single from the former Buzzcocks lead singer because of the references to gay sex. “Homosuperior. In my interior.” Yeah, still funny. Of course, a lot of the Buzzcocks songs had gay references too. TRIVIA: Pete’s parents were going to name him “Shelley” if he’d been a girl, …

Courtesy of Fly Life Inc, today’s Swag Tuesday prize is Rufus Wainwright’s new live CD, Milwaukee At Last!, which comes out nationwide on September 22nd. Recorded at Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater in August 2007 this 10 song CD highlights selections from the full concert DVD that will be released simultaneously. Having wowed and dazzled audiences on his acclaimed and celebrated 2007 …

New York City’s Gay Men’s Chorus may have to disband unless its financial situation turns around quickly. Like so many nonprofit arts organizations in this economic downturn, we are hurting,” said Rick Clodfelter, Chairman of the Board of Big Apple Performing Arts, Inc., the umbrella organization for the NYCGMC. “Decreasing donations, limited resources and the rising costs of production make …

Married ladies Heather and Chelsea Edgett give us a lovely tune about Proposition 8. Love it. Sweet kiss at the end, too.

JMG reader Ray tips us to this new track from former Bronski Beat / Communards lead singer Jimmy Sommerville. Written by folk singer Pete Seeger, Where Have All The Flowers Gone? has been covered hundreds of times by artists ranging from Peter, Paul & Mary, and Joan Baez to less folk-y takes by Earth Wind & Fire and Johnny Rivers. …