Title: The Vinyl Closet - Gays in the Music World Author: Boze Hadleigh Published by: Los Hombres Press, 1991 ISBN: 0-9623497-9-8 [Trade paperback, 237 pages]
The Vinyl Closet is about both the music and the music-makers. It has enough inside "dirt" to break a vacuum-cleaner, and yet enough historical and social context to render this a significant work about popular music and to a lesser degree classical music and the dance.As the author explains, the essential difference between actors and singers is that actors do act. They play other than themselves, while singers' public images are much closer to their private realities. Music isn't so heavily laden with romantic symbolism as are film and TV, and so its creators and interpreters are freer to deviate openly from the sexual and affectional norms and pretenses of Hollywood.
If Hollywood seems no closer than in the past to easing up on its homophobia, and if Hollywood stars are as firmly closeted as ever, then we must now turn to music to help spread the message -- via its openly gay artists and all-embracing lyrics -- that Gay Is Okay.
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