Even though I was culturally aware in the 80s, I didn't know until last week that Billy Squire thought his career was ruined by the "Rock Me Tonite" video.
I was reminded of this factoid by the AV Club today. Instead of getting to work in a timely manner, I chose to watch the video.
First off, the video is fucking terrible. Sometimes he's lip-syncing, sometimes he's not, the dancing is terrible, to the point of painful to watch. The set is cheap and lame. The premise of the video is... Squire is waking up and dressing for a concert?
The reasoning behind Squire saying it ruined his career is primarily due to the fact that made people question Squire's sexuality.
Well, the video in some ways looks like a coming out video. He changes from a ripped T to a pink and white A shirt. His dancing has more traditionally feminine elements: He spins down a pole, stretches out and rolls on the ground, and slides down his silk-sheeted bed. Silk Sheets! He steps through a pinkish doorway to join his band for the final refrain.
But basically, it's a hard rock guy trying to incorporate more glam metal aspects into his act, and failing. 80s me, who definitely didn't pick up any any gay innuendo would have just thought it was terrible video for an OK song. (Seriously, as a teen and young adult, I couldn't pick out gay themes in DH Lawrence stories, or pick up on social cues - one of my best friends was gay and in denial at the time, and I had no clue.)
Probably the "problem" is, even the glammiest of glam metal guys acted like macho hetero males. They left the crawling on the floor and spinning on poles to the video girls. Squires wasn't a new wave act - he was a hard rocker, expected to conform to that stereotype.
I don't know, I think his career would have taken a hit from the terribleness of that video, but it would have been recoverable damage without the gay panic.
Would it be any better now? Probably not. Hard rock and especially metal hasn't really altered the stereotype much since the 80s, and metal is surprisingly conformist and conservative. For a type of music I enjoy, it often bothers me how normative the culture around it is.
I liked Squier's work before the video. I was embarrassed for him when I watched him. As in, so embarrassed I was squirming. It was like watching someone's career die right before your eyes.
I did not think he was gay. That thought has never crossed my mind. What I did think was that he had terrible taste if he thought that video was acceptable. Also he was completely unsexy and couldn't dance.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
If you think rock in the 80s was inhospitable to gay and/or effeminate men or to clown dancing, you've got another thing coming.
Twisted Sister? And Queen transcended genres and was probably a special case, but just about everyone loved them.
Maybe someone who was more familiar with that style of music could distinguish better, but I can't think of any wider genres on the 'rock' spectrum that were so inhospitable to gayness that it could torpedo a career.
I never liked that guy, so I might not be the best person to answer why he was ever popular in the first place, but his style always struck me as sort of halfway between that boring old man rawk like Bob Seeger and (well, all those other Bobs Seeger, I guess because I can't remember their names now) and some kind of white boy R&B, which already don't go together in my mind.
And thanks for making me watch that, buttheads, but yeah, he's a weirdly bad dancer and not as hot as he thinks he is, and also, the aesthetic is that pastel new wave stuff, which is or at least was a totally separate and not really compatible genre.
But bad videos did not ruin careers in the mid-80s, either. Most videos were bad.
I think that he was maybe just a sort of limited purpose flash in the pan. I'd forgotten that I'd ever even heard more than one song by him until just now and I remembered three. But in my defense, they all kind of sounded the same.
Now everybody
Have you heard
If you're in the game
Then the stroke's the word
Don't take no rhythm
Don't take no style
Gotta thirst for killin'
Grab your vial and
(snip)
Put your right hand out
Give a firm handshake
Stroke me, stroke me
Could be a winner boy you move quite well
Stroke me, stroke me
(Stroke)
Stroke me, stroke me
You got your number down
Stroke me, stroke me
Say you're a winner but man
You're just a sinner now
I liked his instrumental work, because I was into loud noises, but the lyrics really didn't grab me for most of his songs. "Lonely is the Night" was okay if you needed to be super extra morose or anything.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
I considered him to be on the better end of butt-rock. His songs could be catchy, but they were still butt-rock; basically a Sammy Hagar with a Robert Plantish voice. And like most butt-rock (I really like saying butt-rock), he never seemed to get above mid-grade celebrity status. So yeah, I doubt one video ruined him, considering he was just sort of bobbing along, popularity-wise. I don't remember a single peep out of the media questioning his sexuality, nor even a single dudebro saying "Billy Squier's a fag." The only thing worse than being talked about, etc.
BTW, I do remember him bitching about having his name spelled wrong (it's Squier, not the more conventional Squire). Seriously, I remember that, yet no discussion of his sexuality.
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hide, witch, hide / the good folks come to burn thee / their keen enjoyment hid behind / a gothic mask of duty - P. Kantner
Although. That may be a point in favor of the 'not sexy' theory, because IIRC, David Lee Roth Van Halen fared better than Sammy Hagar Van Halen, probably in part because DLR was at least kind of good looking. Nobody wanted to look at Sammy Hagar, probably not even people who wanted to listen to him.
So basically, what I'm saying is Billie Suquieire was basically Sammy Hagar without Van Halen.
lol remember Sammy Hagar performed some dedication ceremony when the federal speed limit was raised. All the rock stars were choosing these charitable missions and trying to raise awareness of injustices through activism and their music, and Sammy Hagar chose SPEED LIMITS.
For those who are too scared to look at the spoiler, I am trying to turn this into a thrad about Sammy Hagar now for some reason.
If you think rock in the 80s was inhospitable to gay and/or effeminate men or to clown dancing, you've got another thing coming.
Twisted Sister? And Queen transcended genres and was probably a special case, but just about everyone loved them.
Maybe someone who was more familiar with that style of music could distinguish better, but I can't think of any wider genres on the 'rock' spectrum that were so inhospitable to gayness that it could torpedo a career.
My speculation is that Squier's particular niche (butt rock) was a place where gay rumors would make him less popular. For a middling artist on 14 minutes of fame, it might lose him that minute.
But really, I'm all in on the hypothesis that the video made him look really unsexy and that had more to do with it than anything else.
I do think that metal and hard rock in general are very heteronormative. Not that I don't think the audience can be tolerant, but that the audience is surprisingly conformist.
Rob Halford didn't come out until 1998 (I just looked it up) - 20 years into his career and long after Priest was a popular act.
Rob Halford was a case of hiding in plain sight. Anybody familiar with the leather bar scene had it figured out for years, but to the clueless demographic he was playing to (12- to 19-year-old hetero boys), his mode of dress (and accompanying biker persona) was just a more elaborate version of the uniforms they all wore to the metal shows. It looks obvious in retrospect, but at the time, I don't think most of these kids realized that the gay biker subculture even existed, at least not until the first Police Academy movie.
I was into a few of the metal acts at the time, but Judas Priest never really grabbed me (I was more into the "serious"/pretentious Sabbath/Blackmore/Dio type stuff, whereas JP belonged more on the Scorpions pop-metal side). Not that I would've realized it myself even if I was into them, until a gay friend pointed it out in my senior year of high school.
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hide, witch, hide / the good folks come to burn thee / their keen enjoyment hid behind / a gothic mask of duty - P. Kantner
Rob Halford was a case of hiding in plain sight. Anybody familiar with the leather bar scene had it figured out for years, but to the clueless demographic he was playing to (12- to 19-year-old hetero boys), his mode of dress (and accompanying biker persona) was just a more elaborate version of the uniforms they all wore to the metal shows. It looks obvious in retrospect, but at the time, I don't think most of these kids realized that the gay biker subculture even existed, at least not until the first Police Academy movie.
I was into a few of the metal acts at the time, but Judas Priest never really grabbed me (I was more into the "serious"/pretentious Sabbath/Blackmore/Dio type stuff, whereas JP belonged more on the Scorpions pop-metal side). Not that I would've realized it myself even if I was into them, until a gay friend pointed it out in my senior year of high school.
I would have been part of that clueless demographic. Heck, I probably wouldn't have noticed even if I did know something about the gay biker subculture.
Although, I wasn't into metal during Priest's heyday.
Rob Halford was a case of hiding in plain sight. Anybody familiar with the leather bar scene had it figured out for years, but to the clueless demographic he was playing to (12- to 19-year-old hetero boys), his mode of dress (and accompanying biker persona) was just a more elaborate version of the uniforms they all wore to the metal shows. It looks obvious in retrospect, but at the time, I don't think most of these kids realized that the gay biker subculture even existed, at least not until the first Police Academy movie.
The hetero boys I encountered all seemed to know. I'm pretty sure that's why I knew, because that wasn't the kind of music I followed, and I wasn't really that interested in celebrity news. So I figure that if I knew Rob Halford was gay, everyone must have.
(In retrospect, though, I had this realization that, while I wasn't really interested in following them super-closely or anything, I'll always stop and listen when I hear them.)
Yeah, Rob was well known to be gay by maybe '84 or so, and I don't think it made one whit of difference to most of their fans. JP continued to be pretty popular right up until their music really slipped. I don't know I would say that metal fans were particularly tolerant. It may have been more that Rob got special dispensation for being a good front man? It's really hard to say.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
Year old thread but, wow, people didn't know Halford is gay?
I mean, fuck... okay my age is probably showing here since I'm only 37 and most of you guys saw or knew of Priest and Halford before I did, but god it was obvious to me instantly as soon as I knew homosexuality was a thing that existed (my uncle is gay so maybe like 7 years old?)
And don't get me wrong, I love me some Judas Priest (they were the only new wave of british heavy metal band I really liked actually) and I love me some Rob Halford but god, the only person I can think of that made his homosexuality more obvious was Elton John.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
Two words.
Freddie. Mercury. So many people were surprised when he finally came out, I don't know how either.
But yeah, for Halford I just figured it was over the top metal posturing, maybe playing with something that was considered controversial.
That's my point though - people were surprised when Freddie came out (lol I don't know why either but I may not have even been born at the time so I can't speak to public opinion of the day) but was anyone surprised when Halford came out? I mean... really?
Also, Painkiller is now stuck in my head. I've listened to it 3 times today. I love that fucking song.
e: ok make that 4
FASTER THAN A LASER BULLET
LOUDER THAN AN ATOM BOMB
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
And don't get me wrong, I love me some Judas Priest (they were the only new wave of british heavy metal band I really liked actually) and I love me some Rob Halford but god, the only person I can think of that made his homosexuality more obvious was Elton John.
Elton John came out in the 70s, though. Everyone was pretty flamboyant in the 70s. It's weird how men's fashions reverted back to being super heteronormative after that brief foray.
I actually REMEMBER it too. I think we'd just moved to North Carolina, and the girls in gym class were all gossiping about it, so I was going along trying to act all surprised about it, but I wasn't really sure what was supposed to be surprising about it, and I didn't know why they cared. I mean, he was a gross old man, so it's not like his sexuality was of any interest to me. And he was a giant superstar at the time, too, so even if they'd had some goal of getting with him or something, him being gay didn't significantly reduce their chances, all told. (Or did he come out as bisexual?)
Anyway, I do remember thinking it was weird that it was such a big deal, but I also remember that, at least among little girls in North Carolina, it was quite the shocker.
This was before I was born but I'm fairly sure he came out as bisexual first then eventually declared himself gay? Maybe I'm wrong, like most of this was in the 70s and early 80s, and I either wasn't born yet or was too young to know what any of it really meant yet.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
Yeah, for infants such as yourself, it's probably useful to look at things like those Sears catalogs from the 70s, like the bodysuits and the giant bell bottoms in bright patterns and stuff that look so comical now.
Sears was not edgy or cool at the time, any more than it is now. It was considered stodgy and conservative. Sears was where your parents and other dorks shopped. It's just that at the time, fashion was pretty gender neutral. Women were wearing the same types of things, but that looks less funny and weird than the men, because men's fashions got regressive again. I dunno what happened there. Was that some kind of Thatcher and Reagan thing or something?
Anyways, Elton John was considerably more flamboyant than an average guy on the street, and he was known for that, but he was an entertainer, so maybe people chalked it up to that. So I guess I can see how, at the time, some people wouldn't have assumed he was gay because of the way he presented himself.
I was about ten, probably, and I either knew or suspected he was gay, I think, and didn't realize it was important until he came out and I saw kids acting like it was.
Maybe we were all bullshitting each other, pretending to be shocked about it. Like, that thing where people feign naivete like it's an admirable character trait to be so ignorant you don't even see the world around you.
It's just that at the time, fashion was pretty gender neutral. Women were wearing the same types of things, but that looks less funny and weird than the men, because men's fashions got regressive again. I dunno what happened there. Was that some kind of Thatcher and Reagan thing or something?
I'm not sure, but I was born in 1979 and to me, dudes from the 70s look like fucking aliens.
And this is coming from a guy who had hair to his ass in 1995-96 with blue and white streaks through it.
e: then again, to them I'd probably look like an alien too. Back then anyway. Now I'm 37 and bald.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
There was a return to androgynous flamboyance in the hard rock/heavy metal scene in the 1980s, and at that time I was a "serious" punk listener and disdained the glam rock genre.
The first time I saw Judas Priest was in the 80s on TV, and I thought it was a venerable act glamming it up for better MTV exposure, i.e. "selling out," which was anathema to me at the time. I didn't give it a second thought.
But also, I really was exactly that clueless. I mean, I knew there were such things as gay people, but had no idea about how one could tell, nor did I particularly care. Shameful confession: One of my best friends at the time is gay and it pains me to think about how scared he was to be anything but heteronormative around his friends. I am reminded that teenage me was a pretty horrible person in many ways, usually unintentional, but mostly ignorant.
Next thing you know someone is going to try and tell me that Liberace was gay too.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
Rock Me Tonite
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