Let me start with a critique. Or perhaps a rant. Since when has music had a gender? I don’t mean that as a joke. Music has always been something for the masses. Whether the performer(s) were male or female had no influence on the quality of their work. Good music is just that, as is bad music. Gender has no effect on that, that I am aware of.
So why has AOL place not only gender, but sexual orientation into music? I can’t imagine how some exec made this pitch and got it approved. I’m referring to the G-Sides site created and launched by AOL. I never knew that a sexual orientation makes music sound different. It’s quite a revelation. Obviously it seems AOL has found that it has and thus the creation of this site.
I don’t care about a person’s sexuality, it has no bearing on their work. In the case of entertainers it does not prevent nor promote the quality of what they do. Liberace, who influenced musical entertainers from James Brown to Elvis Presley to Tupac Shakur [at least to include him in a song], was at one time the highest paid performer in Vegas and had a huge career and was gay. Did that affect his ability to be an exceptional pianist and singer? To say it does is to say that all exceptional singers (male or female) are gay, which is patently false. To say it was a factor in his abilities is to say that somehow Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder or Billy Joel are somewhat less than great, which I believe to also be a mistake.
Sexuality is exactly that. It is defined as “a state of being sexual, sexual activity”. To place a political category on music is to confine its scope and that of the listeners. It is a way to label and isolate, possibly even persecute those that accept such limitations. What entertainers do in their homes, behind closed doors should be private. In this media crazed world it often is not, by choice or otherwise. But to confine music in such a restrictive and narrow-minded way is insulting to me.
This is what I think, what do you think?
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