LGBT in Progressive Rock

I can't think of any prog musicians/singers/writers who are known to be GLBT.  There may well be some.  Of course, folk music has a much greater presence in this regard, mostly among individual artists, and unfortunately not extending into my beloved prog folk genre

Edited by kenethlevine - March 14 2012 at 22:12

Obviously the Neal Morse thing was a hysterical* joke but there is an interesting thing about artists that people "know" are gay but haven't come out. Michael Stipe from REM was an example of this (until he did come out recently) but anyone close to the band knew that he'd dated only men since the late 80's. Probably the best remaining example is Morrissey who refuses to answer any questions about his love/sex life (and always has) but, well, we all know don't we, largely but not exclusively down to how regularly references to homosexuality pop up in his lyrics. And yet there's this sort of "Well we can't say he's gay because he didn't say it himself first" thing, which I understand, it's someone's decision to come out, what Carrie Fisher did to John Travolta was pretty scummy, but it's wierd to act like you don't know someone is but you do.

Prog seems to be pretty good about homosexuality though. There don't seem to be a lot of homosexuals in prog but I'm very confident that most people would have no problem with it. This contrasts very well with rap where in 2012, it's still physically impossible to get through a battle rap without both MCs describing in minute detail how much the other one enjoys being sodomised.

stonebeard wrote: There are very few gay musicians in prog. It is a remarkably masculine and hetero genre of music.

In fact, I've heard rumours that some bands are trying to introduce a "don't ask don't tell"-type of regulation, lest masculine, macho prog bearers be forced to be psychologically stressed when they front bands with the occasional deviant drummer enjoying the views too much...

HolyMoly wrote: A question I see getting raised a lot in the last page or so is -- to paraphrase as I understand it -- if we're so enlightened and tolerant of the gay sexual orientation (if in fact we are), then why do we make a point of singling it out, classifying it as if it were different from anything else?  Wouldn't it be better to just say everyone's essentially the same and sexual orientation doesn't matter?

I don't think everyone is the same  - there's beauty in diversity.

We're not (well at least I am not) singling LGBT artists out because of what they are. It's because of their potential life experience reflected into a song.


To make things simple: if you want a song about a man who was left by his woman, there's plenty songs to choose from.

If you want to hear a song that deals with specific topic of forbidden love in a fundamentalist political system - you need something more specific - perhaps a prog band from Islamabad.

If you want to hear a song about LGBT issues you need a LGBT artist. Preferably a prog artist since we're talking about prog here.

Textbook wrote: I don't think you at all need an LGBT artist to make an LGBT song. I mean Peter Gabriel's white so that makes Biko pointless? No. You can put yourself in other people's shoes. For some people, Rod Stewart's The Killing Of Georgie is a key LGBT song.

Goo Goo ga joob

Edited by HolyMoly - May 09 2012 at 20:29

Hi,

Edited by moshkito - March 15 2012 at 12:34

Textbook wrote:   I gave them a bit of Judas Priest, Leather Rebel and so on. (If you didn't know, Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford, one of British metal's biggest badasses, is openly gay.) That shut them up a bit.

I brought this up in a discussion on MMA, but when I first learned this I was completely floored and somewhat devastated.  Rob Halford represented macho for me with the leather and spikes and riding on stage on a motorcycle and the screams and the pure adrenaline charge that I got from listening to Priest.  Heavy metal represented macho, unlike that touchy feely crap that came from the Boy Georges, and George Michaels and Elton Johns of the music world. 

Dean wrote: ^ LGBT is a self-designation used by the LGBT community as a means of recognising themselves without the innacuracy of the phrase "gay community" and all the associated excess bagage and social stigma that comes with it - it's their word, let them use it.

There is no LGBT community only people who are L G B and T.