Shine the rainbow spot light

When women make a statement in the music industry, they are called Divas and power houses. When  straight men become popular they are give titles like king of... or sexy bad boy and things of that nature. but what happens when your in between the two. Gay men have the hardest time in the music in the music industry because their hasn't be a place set for them quite yet. However just because we haven't officially said  this is " the genre for gays" doesn't mean they haven't made their own impact on popular music, including rock and roll. In the article "Between Decadence and Denial: Two Studies in Gay Male Politics and 1980s Pop Music", they point out that in the 1980's was when most popular music looked very gay."In a decade that was supposed to have been dominated by conservative national politics and the rise of the straight-laced power-lunching yuppie, the world of popular music in the 1980s looked awfully gay. Bands like Erasure, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, and the Bronski Beat made it to the top of the US pop charts with self-proclaimed, sometimes flamboyantly gay members. Professed heterosexuals like George Michael, Prince, Michael Jackson, and Madonna challenged established codes of sexual conduct by adopting fashions and styles long associated with the gay community".  

Another misconception is that many people think that gay men in general are weak because they often imitate girls. However this is not the case. There are many rock bands such as " Extra Fancy", who had to have a independent label because it wasn't that they were gay it was that they weren't the stereotypical gay males so they didn't no how to sell their music. So the boys had to make their own place in the music industry, so that they could sing and speak freely about what they believed in. "In 1996 Atlantic Records released and almost instantly abandoned an album that asserted a uniquely aggressive, macho gay male identity. The songs of Extra Fancy's Sinnerman deal with sadomasochism, violent retribution against gay-bashers, and life with HIV in a punk-inflected style that musically reflects the intense aggression of their texts. Extra Fancy first released Sinnerman on the independent label Diablo Musica, but Atlantic immediately picked it up, hoping to use it as a catalyst for their new gay marketing division. Eight weeks later the band, along with the division, was dropped". 

In conclusion gay men are just as much hard core and just as much a diva as any other person in the music industry. Music is about expressing yourself and making people listen to what you have to say. Therefore there should be no limit on what you sing or rap about because all of these taboo subjects need to come to light so tat people can stop being ignorant to the world and what's going on around them.

                                                       citation
Schwandt, Kevin. "The erotics of an oil drum: queercore, gay macho, and the defiant sexuality of Extra Fancy's Sinnerman." Women & Music 13 (2009): 76+. Academic OneFile. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

1.  Lecklider, Aaron "
Between Decadence and Denial: Two Studies in Gay Male Politics and 1980s Pop Music." Journal of Popular Music Studies Vol. 16, pages 111–141, August 2004