Mighty Real
A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
“An excellent history of the queer world’s countless music scenes.”
—Emma Alpern, Vulture
“An essential book for this moment.”
—Rob Sheffield
The definitive history of LGBTQ music, from Stonewall to RuPaul, and its impact on culture and American life
From the underground dancefloors of the Seventies to the global charts of the Nineties, LGBTQ artists and audiences shaped music’s sound, style, and spirit. In Mighty Real, veteran journalist Barry Walters chronicles its LGBTQ history from the Velvet Underground to the 21st century’s dawn as he honors the artists who redefined gender, defied tradition, and dared to challenge sexual norms with the help of a record business that wasn’t as straight as commonly believed.
Drawing on his decades as a New York- and San Francisco-based music critic, Walters examines how LGBTQ musicians, music industry executives, and fans reshaped the mainstream. He connects the dots between David Bowie’s dazzling reinventions, Grace Jones’s androgynous glamor, Prince’s boundary-shattering sexuality, and the radical candor of the Indigo Girls to prove they’re all doing the same thing: fighting oppression.
With exuberance, insight, and encyclopedic knowledge, Walters brings to life the songs and society that filled dancefloors, bedrooms, and streets as he uncovers yesteryear’s coded LGBTQ messages that paved the way for today’s unabashedly queer hits. Mighty Real is a masterful love letter to the music that liberated generations, and it’s written in a page-turning, personal way that blurs distinctions between chronicle and memoir. This is the rare and revolutionary music history told to help you laugh, cry, and then rally against lingering inequality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Music journalist Walters debuts with an ebullient love letter to LGBTQ+ and "gay friendly" musicians. He begins in the late 1960s, when such artists as the Velvet Underground and Elton John explored themes of "alienation, rejection, melancholy... and uncommon love" in songs whose references were unmistakable to those in the know but subtle enough to fly under the radar (see Lou Reed's "Candy Says," which speaks "stirringly" of trans actor Candy Darling but could appeal to anyone who's "wished they could change something about their body"). In the 1970s, David Bowie's "audaciously queer" Ziggy Stardust persona popularized "bluntly homoerotic songs" and a glam rock style that "embraced... willful artificiality those who couldn't conform to what culture dictates as real." Meanwhile Bette Midler, who got her start performing in the gay bathhouses of New York City, popularized "camp like no one since Liberace." Also examined are the unique challenges faced by artists like the Jackson Five and Diana Ross in putting out music that brought together racial and sexual minorities. Walters evocatively draws out how LGBTQ+ musicians battled oppression in their work even as they navigated a record industry that sought to silence sexual nonconformity while profiting off styles gay musicians made fashionable. It adds up to an impressive and expansive celebration of a rich chapter of music history.
