{"id":4115,"date":"2020-12-11T14:22:45","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T14:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/"},"modified":"2020-12-11T14:22:45","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T14:22:45","slug":"the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/lifestyle\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of the Out, Queer Pop Star Is Only Just Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The out queer pop star is still a rare thing in our culture, and a fairly new development. In the 1970s, Sylvester, Klaus Nomi and Jobriath were a touch too sophisticated for the mainstream, and Freddie Mercury was as coy about his sexuality as one could be fronting a band called Queen. The fierce queer politics of Bronski Beat and the barely-coded sex-positivity of Frankie Goes To Hollywood made some noise on the US charts in the early 1980s while Elton John still presented as bisexual, but it really wasn\u2019t until Erasure exploded onto the scene a couple years later that an open and defiant gay voice could be heard at your high school dance. Singer Andy Bell has been out, loud and proud from the start of his career, hitting the US top 20 three times during the conservative Reagan and Bush years. He demanded a little respect, on his terms, and he got it. It\u2019s 34 years since the release of Erasure\u2019s debut album Wonderland, and\u2026well, not much has changed. While the gay audience is more sought-after than ever, openly-gay pop stars are still scarce. Lady Gaga identifies as bi, Sam Smith as gay and non-binary, but beyond them, in the last decade or so, only Lil Nas X has managed to crack the top ten. While the indie world has Shamir, Perfume Genius, and Christine and the Queens, representation for queer kids on mainstream radio is still largely indirect. Rod Thomas is here to change that. Recording&#8230; Click below to read the full story from Esquire<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esquire.com\/entertainment\/music\/a34837553\/history-of-lbtq-pop-music-andy-bell-erasure-rod-thomas-bright-light-bright-light\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The out queer pop star is still a rare thing in our culture, and a fairly new development. In the 1970s, Sylvester, Klaus Nomi and Jobriath were a touch too sophisticated for the mainstream, and Freddie Mercury was as coy about his sexuality as one could be fronting a band called Queen. The fierce queer&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":4116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Story of the Out, Queer Pop Star Is Only Just Beginning - The Daily Herald<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Story of the Out, Queer Pop Star Is Only Just Beginning - The Daily Herald\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The out queer pop star is still a rare thing in our culture, and a fairly new development. In the 1970s, Sylvester, Klaus Nomi and Jobriath were a touch too sophisticated for the mainstream, and Freddie Mercury was as coy about his sexuality as one could be fronting a band called Queen. The fierce queer&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Daily Herald\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-11T14:22:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Diego Noren\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Daily Herald\",\"description\":\"Your Super Aggregated News, Blog &amp; Magazine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/4115-the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning.jpg\",\"width\":980,\"height\":490,\"caption\":\"The Story of the Out, Queer Pop Star Is Only Just Beginning\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/\",\"name\":\"The Story of the Out, Queer Pop Star Is Only Just Beginning - The Daily Herald\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-11T14:22:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-12-11T14:22:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/96989c486c90ab59aaa3a34d105be635\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/the-story-of-the-out-queer-pop-star-is-only-just-beginning\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/96989c486c90ab59aaa3a34d105be635\",\"name\":\"Diego Noren\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9bf057fc660d9889237fcbf3867f688a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Diego Noren\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","amp_validity":null,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}