[MUSIC] "Is There a ‘Gay Aesthetic’ to Pop Music?"

[rfmcdonald]

At the Smithsonian Magazine, Geoffrey Himes makes the case for the particular importance of Mika, as an artist in his own right and as the latest heir to a specifically queer tradition in popular music.

Now that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that homosexuals have the same right to marriage as any other Americans, perhaps we can begin to think about Gay Americans as we think about Irish Americans, African Americans and Hispanic Americans: as a community with its own traditions and cultural flavors while being an essential part of the American whole.

If that's true, we can ask the question: can we identify a “gay” aesthetic in music the same way we can point to a Celtic, black or Latino aesthetic? You don’t have to look very hard to find not just one but multiple gay currents in music. The most obvious one is disco music, which evolved into today’s nearly ubiquitous EDM. The most out-of-the-closet example is the lesbian-folk-song movement self-described as “Womyn’s Music.”

But one aspect of gay-pop worthy of detailed examination is the sub-genre I call “Glam Piano.” The roots of this tradition can be traced back to New Orleans bars of the 1950s, when Little Richard, Esquerita and Bobby Marchan refined their piano-based rock'n'roll while working with and/or as female impersonators. The biggest Glam Piano star is Elton John, the flamboyantly costumed British pianist whose ringing piano figures and diva-like belting made “Philadelphia Freedom” and “Crocodile Rock” templates for the genre. Culture Club's Boy George put his own twist on John’s sound, and more recently Rufus Wainwright has given an art-song gloss to the genre.

This summer, however, has seen the release of one of the greatest Glam Piano albums ever. “No Place in Heaven” is the work of Mika, a singer-pianist born in Beirut in 1983 and a resident of London since he moved there at age nine. Like Little Richard, oddly enough, Mika was born with the last name Penniman and likewise dropped it. While a modest star in Europe, he remains largely unknown in the United States, yet he has steadily built the best Glam Piano catalogue in history by marrying John's irresistible melodies and thumping rhythms to Wainwright's smart, literate lyrics.