Gay. Light-hearted and carefree.

April 7th – There’s a lot of stuff that’s oversold in the rock business. You know, these announcements usually on January second, that tell us;

“This is the best album of the year!”

or

“Nothing surpasses the brilliance of this collection of songs!” (When I hear or read that phrase I always think, ‘Well I’ll buy nothing then, thank you for the recommendation’)

What the sellers are hoping to create, of course, is a pre-sale buzz around either album or artist. IMHO, if you have to sell it that hard it probably aint worth the buyin’ but let that pass and let's concentrate on the fact that these folk will stop at nothing to shift the units, and all sorts of outlandish claims are made; most if not all of them spurious.

At the opposite end of the spectrum of selling the star there are also real efforts made to try and hide certain things in their life so as not to either advertise the property’s dubious peccadilloes (the Jimmy Savile debacle comes immediately to mind) or allow anything to reach the public domain that might alienate the fan-base; Hollywood of the 20’s right through to the late 60’s took this sort of behaviour to new highs; let’s take what is a simple case of everyday life for most of us.

It was (and in some cases still is) considered career suicide if some heart-throb or other was found to have done something as heinous as having a permanent partner or, heaven forbid, have actually married said partner. Thing is you see large amounts of money, and I mean large amounts of money, had been invested in this studio commodity to get him or her this far in the biz, and the creators were now ready to reap the benefits of all that grooming and smoke-screen advertising, so anything that threatened a return on their investment was anathema to them. For a male star the urban myth was that the female following would drop off, with a consequent loss in takings at the box-office, ergo a threat to the bank-ability of said star. In such cases the promotions departments, under the  lash  of the studio heads, would go to any lengths, indulging in lies, bribery, supply of drugs, prostitutes, pay-offs and threats of violence in order to hide this dreadful secret.

Not to be outdone, this Hollywood attitude became prevalent thinking in the early days of rock ‘n’ roll. I can remember the shock-horror revelations in the ‘NME’ and ‘DISC’ music papers when it was announced that such-and-such a rock star was in fact married, such discovery's being treated almost akin to said star suffering from a bout of leprosy. As with all things social and as the years progressed, sense and sensibility held sway and it became more acceptable for a pop star to be married… Just pause and consider what I've written for a moment or two… Scary, huh… it became more acceptable for a pop star to be married. It also has to be said that the promotions departments were nothing if not adaptable and with love being the fickle beast it is they decided to turn the thing on its head…we have a saying in theatre which covers it nicely;

“If you can’t hide it make a feature of it.”

So, instead of subterfuge the event became another way of advertising the star vehicle, and the upsurge of sensationalist journalism gave added value to what would inevitably become, in our ever-more disposable society, a messy, column-inch-grabbing divorce. They were just following the road to the trough supposedly first signposted by Phineus T. Barnum, when he said;

‘There is no such thing as bad publicity’

although he was only restating an earlier Oscar Wilde bon mot (doesn't everyone);

‘The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.’ 

although I prefer Brendan Behan’s variation on that theme;

‘There is no such thing as bad publicity unless it’s your obituary’

Gradually, as the sexual revolution turned full circle, an acceptance of being married was put into the shade by the acceptance of the audience to a rock star being homosexual or in modern parlance what we refer to as being gay. I would really like to reclaim that word back to it's original meaning but, probably not right now. Right now, let's consider where we are in the sexual revolution, how we got there, what's considered as OK now and then refer back to that scene in 'A History of Violence' when Joey is supposed to be strangled with some wire but manages, against all the odds, to escape, killing two thugs in the process and his brother, who had arranged for the killing stands up from his chairs and says to the two bodies on the floor;

"How do you fuck that up? How?"

That's how it worked out for George Michael…

Can I ask, at this juncture, did anyone reading this not think he was gay from the get-go? Just about everyone I spoke to when ‘WHAM’ hit the scene was convinced he batted for the other team, even the girls, so why do you think Mr. Michael lived for so many years in denial? It was almost as if he was doing a Hollywood in reverse;

“Gay? No, no, I’m not…no, I just like the company of men, blokes joshin’, rough and tumble men’s stuff…”

Forgive my observation but to prove your masculinity, Mr. Michael, you hang about with Andrew Ridgeley…yeah, right.

He really could've saved himself a whole lot of angst; I mean really. There was nothing to fear from being outed because...well…because… Ok, let’s give a homily to help;

An American heiress is invited to a dinner party at the British Embassy. She's early and so had time to inspect the table, all finely laid out. She notices she's not seated, as protocol and her position in society dictated, on the top table. She draws the British Ambassadors' attention to this faux pas and, as the staff began to rearrange the whole table to suit just her, says; “I fear you must find these matters of protocol very trying, Mister Ambassador.” to which the Ambassador replies, “Not at all, Madam. We find, on the whole, that those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter.”

My guess is that would have been exactly the public's reaction to an announcement about Mr. Michael being gay, something that was, as far as I could ascertain, was common knowledge anyway…bless; certainly a better way of doing it than what transpired. 

It took his arrest for performing a lewd act in a public toilet on this day in 1998 to force the issue… Y’know, not wanting to be unkind but I remember, on the ‘Desert Island Disc’ programme, he told Kirsty Young that a bang on the head when he was very young had created his obsession with music. Pity it didn't knock some sense into him as far as his readiness to accept his sexuality was concerned too.