Thursday, January 15, 2004
I was going to simply leave a comment for Geoffrey regarding his thoughts on isolated gay men/teens and black music (5th paragraph, 14 January post, not linkable dammit!), but my thoughts ended up being bigger than traditional comment-size. So here's my full response, as it were.
Yup. I agree wholly with your thesis re: isolated gay men and black music. I think that's altered somewhat, however, in the past decade-or-so, with hip-hop becoming the dominant black music (and, for that matter, pop music), and more "traditional" R&B shunted to the sidelines of "Adult R&B" radio stations. What seems to have sprung up in its wake? The unfortunate preponderence of DJ-mixed "dance" comps, especially the ubiquitous Ultra series and those by the vile NYC bridge-and-tunnel DJ Louie DeVito. While I think that these records are largely shite, however, at least they're another form of "out" for youth (and available even at Wal-Marts, natch). The big difference, as I see it, is that for you and I, Geoffrey, we were anathema, rural white boys listening to, bathing in, R&B. Trance, on the other hand, is becoming fairly overground. Frat boys like it, even. [Not that there aren't gay frat boys...] And don't forget that it wasn't just R&B I was loving (and identifying with) in my teen years - it was also the Smiths and R.E.M., the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Twin poles, like parallel lines for me, Morrissey and Chaka Khan - and in some ways, saying the same thing, albeit in dfifferent vocabularies.
And I wonder if metrosexual highschool kids are watching Queer Eye, and what they think of it. Metrosexuality may seem new to much of the adult population, but in highschools, there've always been metrosexual kids: popular, moneyed, athletic. Funny how so many of them end up fat, balding, and with three kids by 30.
Yup. I agree wholly with your thesis re: isolated gay men and black music. I think that's altered somewhat, however, in the past decade-or-so, with hip-hop becoming the dominant black music (and, for that matter, pop music), and more "traditional" R&B shunted to the sidelines of "Adult R&B" radio stations. What seems to have sprung up in its wake? The unfortunate preponderence of DJ-mixed "dance" comps, especially the ubiquitous Ultra series and those by the vile NYC bridge-and-tunnel DJ Louie DeVito. While I think that these records are largely shite, however, at least they're another form of "out" for youth (and available even at Wal-Marts, natch). The big difference, as I see it, is that for you and I, Geoffrey, we were anathema, rural white boys listening to, bathing in, R&B. Trance, on the other hand, is becoming fairly overground. Frat boys like it, even. [Not that there aren't gay frat boys...] And don't forget that it wasn't just R&B I was loving (and identifying with) in my teen years - it was also the Smiths and R.E.M., the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Twin poles, like parallel lines for me, Morrissey and Chaka Khan - and in some ways, saying the same thing, albeit in dfifferent vocabularies.
And I wonder if metrosexual highschool kids are watching Queer Eye, and what they think of it. Metrosexuality may seem new to much of the adult population, but in highschools, there've always been metrosexual kids: popular, moneyed, athletic. Funny how so many of them end up fat, balding, and with three kids by 30.
# posted by Thomas : 11:19 AM
