David Bowie Webdream

Greatest, gayest, album of all time?

Posted by Moonage | Filed under Interpretations

A while back I did a post on “Bands that make you gay“. It was a fairly all-reaching list that included pretty much anyone that ever recorded a song. Bowie didn’t fair too well on that list. However, once one of those bands has made you gay, Bowie apparently fairs much better. According to Out magazine, the greatest, gayest, album of all time is Ziggy Stardust. Bowie gets later mentions for Hunky Dory and Diamond Dogs as well.

As with any list, I find this one rather conspicuous. For me, the gayest album of all time, bar none, had to be Village People’s Macho Man and Cruisin. Before that point, it was one thing for people to think someone was gay, after that point, EVERYONE had to be gay. Otherwise normal teen boys were suddenly running around doing dances and moves that they learned from extremely open gay guys. What everyone thought meant the Young Men’s Christian Association suddenly meant a place to get hit on by old gay guys. No longer was it suggested that a singer was gay, they tossed it at you as part of their marketing. Village People busted down the doors the Elton John and others would strut through poudly and loudly. YMCA’s not even on this list.

A close second would be Frankie Goes To Hollyood’s Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Relax was a huge hit as well that celebrated gayness, perversion, you name it. The video was so racy the initialy version got banned on MTV. That was hard to do in 1984 even it if is impossible now. That one merited #51 on the list at least.

Ziggy Startdust on the other hand I never interpreted as being about being gay. It was a story about the moral decline of civilization right about the time it finds out it has only a few years left to survive and how some of the indivual characters responded. It wasn’t sending the message that it was OK to be confused about your sexual orientation, it was painting the picture that they just were confused. Elton John was sending that message at about the same time, but Bowie really didn’t on Ziggy. There were all kinds of people illustrated on Ziggy, gays faired no better or worse than cops, priests, robots, or anything else. They faired a lot better a few years later with YMCA.

As far as the individual effect of Ziggy went, I think it meant different things to different people. Sure, “you’re not alone” might appeal to the sexually confused young teen struggling to find their identity. But, it appealed equally to the thoroughly straight teen who couldn’t grasp how to relate to members of the opposite sex. Moonage Daydream wasn’t about sticking a penis shaped object close to one’s face, to others it was a fubar drug trip with sexual overtones. And, I always felt it was about mechanical sex devices, like in robots. Another great, gay, musician that was totally omitted from the list, Gary Numan, would take that trip even farther with “Are Friends Electric?“. His “friend” was “a man outside”. There was no ambiguity.

The beauty of Bowie’s early stuff, especially in the three albums Out mentions, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, and Diamond Dogs, is the ambiguity. They can be interpreted so differently by anone listening to them that you almost wouldn’t recognize what people are comparing. The fact that Out seems to think Ziggy is the greatest, gayest album of all time I think is simply a statement to how incredibly masterful Bowie was with that ambiguity in 1972.