2008 Woodie Awards
AOL strikes wrong chord with `gay music'
Jim Farber ; New York Daily News (KRT)
Issue date: 2/22/06 Section: Life
Does music have a sexual orientation?
Apparently America OnLine thinks so.
Call up their massively popular AOLmusic.com site, scroll through their "musical styles" choices, and right below "soundtracks" and just above "classic rock" you'll find a heretofore undiscovered genre known as "gay and lesbian" music.
If nothing else, this begs some intriguing questions about your CD collection:
How, exactly, would a CD become gay?
To THIS gay man, the absurdity of the question begs the most blinkered suppositions:
Was the CD abused by an LP when it was young?
Did it lack a proper stereo system to guide it while it was growing up?
Or maybe it was the product of some "intelligent design" decision at the manufacturing level-the technological equivalent to the so-called "gay gene."
AOLmusic isn't the only sonically minded company thinking gay these days. Sony/BMG has just proudly trumpeted a new label meant to tout lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered artists called Twist. Its first releases arrive this June.
The label comes complete with a syndicated radio show, which just began spinning "gay music" in New York on WPLJ-FM, Sundays from 10 p.m. to midnight.
On the surface, this all reads as terribly liberated, as if the conglomerates were saying: "Look how gay-friendly we are! We're promoting you guys to the hilt."
Unfortunately for, say, Twist, most gay musicians would sooner be shoved into the "spoken word" category than be ghettoized by their sexual-object choice. It's not that many don't want to be known for who they are. It's that they make music for the same audience any artist does: as large and lucrative a one as possible.
By labeling their music "gay," it sends the message to straight people that they can't possibly relate to what they're singing about.
Is this something tomorrow's Elton John would want to tell his potential listeners?
In the case of AOLmusic, the "gay and lesbian" music section makes assumptions about taste that necessarily stumble into stereotype. Take a look at what AOL considered "gay music" in its debut week:
Apparently America OnLine thinks so.
Call up their massively popular AOLmusic.com site, scroll through their "musical styles" choices, and right below "soundtracks" and just above "classic rock" you'll find a heretofore undiscovered genre known as "gay and lesbian" music.
If nothing else, this begs some intriguing questions about your CD collection:
How, exactly, would a CD become gay?
To THIS gay man, the absurdity of the question begs the most blinkered suppositions:
Was the CD abused by an LP when it was young?
Did it lack a proper stereo system to guide it while it was growing up?
Or maybe it was the product of some "intelligent design" decision at the manufacturing level-the technological equivalent to the so-called "gay gene."
AOLmusic isn't the only sonically minded company thinking gay these days. Sony/BMG has just proudly trumpeted a new label meant to tout lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered artists called Twist. Its first releases arrive this June.
The label comes complete with a syndicated radio show, which just began spinning "gay music" in New York on WPLJ-FM, Sundays from 10 p.m. to midnight.
On the surface, this all reads as terribly liberated, as if the conglomerates were saying: "Look how gay-friendly we are! We're promoting you guys to the hilt."
Unfortunately for, say, Twist, most gay musicians would sooner be shoved into the "spoken word" category than be ghettoized by their sexual-object choice. It's not that many don't want to be known for who they are. It's that they make music for the same audience any artist does: as large and lucrative a one as possible.
By labeling their music "gay," it sends the message to straight people that they can't possibly relate to what they're singing about.
Is this something tomorrow's Elton John would want to tell his potential listeners?
In the case of AOLmusic, the "gay and lesbian" music section makes assumptions about taste that necessarily stumble into stereotype. Take a look at what AOL considered "gay music" in its debut week: