vfozi said:
first of all, the 80s were NOT the height of homophobia in america. the huge popularity of madonna's "vogue" video alone should throw that idea in the dustbin. the height of homophobia in america was probably the late 70s, immediately post-stonewall, and that didn't last long
yes, but don't you think that maybe the gay black underground had a kind of cohesiveness in the 1970 to 1990 period that it perhaps lost afterwards -- again, i'm SPECULATING openly -- but let's say stonewall allows for the emergence of a gay black dance culture clearly marked off from black culture as a whole -- and let's say, further, that AIDS served to isolate the gay black community in the 80s, and imparted a darkness, urgency, death-consciousness to the music -- but that post-1990, thanks to people like madonna ("vogue" was 1989/90), gay blacks were welcomed into mainstream, or at least were more "welcome" than their hetero black counterparts, whom mainstream america continues to fear as hyper violent, hyper sexualized beings
vfozi said:
secondly, the idea that gay urban blacks were creating chicago house as an alternative to r&b is sort of ridiculous.
except that house did emerge during these years as a separate genre -- and if you listen to tapes of ron hardy it's mainly chicago house and european dance, not chicago house and commercial r'n'b (save for the odd prince song or something)
vfozi said:
"garage music" is totally rooted in early r&b, you pick a selection of big-name early american house djs and producers (people like tony humphries, steve silk hurley, todd terry etc) and you'll see they were working in competition with the producers who would define "proper r&b" - your jam & lewis, jellybean benitez types who had a huge influence on what early house producers were doing (etc etc)
true -- this was certainly an aspect of the 80s sound, especially in new york -- but there was also the starkly modern, drug-crazed aspect
vfozi said:
third (and this goes out to you, dominic!) i think it is incredibly patronizing to cite the decline of american house music as a lack of creativity in the gay black community
yes, but it's even more "patronizing" toward white americans and europeans!
i.e., it's a very simplistic model, but i'm setting up white people as following the lead of black people in the area of dance music -- and so if the question is posed, "why don't all these supposedly trendy and fashionable white people embrace hip hop, grime, dancehall, reggaeton -- all these wonderfully inventive new sounds coming from the streets -- why do they play it so safe?" -- then i'm suggesting that middle class whites, for complicated reasons that i've yet to go into, are enamored by the two related images of (1) gay black club hedonism circa 70/90 and (2) europhile fantasy of aristocratic decadence -- SUCH THAT if there were to be a re-emergent gay black underground club scene w/ a new kind of dance music and cultural politics, then maybe white middle class fixations would be unsettled and change
i of course realize that in bringing up race issues i need to choose my language very carefully -- and that in this medium it's really not possible to choose language carefully, to make arguments adequately -- so i'm relying on people to take what i say as open speculation, not considered positions
vfozi said:
fourth, it is also incredibly patronizing to assume that gay black americans are somehow dissociated from american r&b
no - i don't make that assumption at all! -- rather, i suspect that this is where a great deal of the gay black audience has migrated to
rather, what i don't understand is why gay blacks no longer seem to have an UNDERGROUND music and club scene -- unless that scene is the shelter-style house scene -- i.e., r'n'b is commercial music -- so maybe it's the case that it's an underground culture where the soundtrack is commercial r'n'b??? -- if so, why aren't they making music that's more underground??? i think that's a fair question and one worth thinking about and for which i haven't the slightest answer -- which is why i posed the question!
vfozi said:
i have no idea why you assume that the narratives in house are necessarily much more explicity homoerotic than in r&b (i assure, based on how wildly popular r&b is among the gay audience here, that they're not)
i'm discussing music and underground culture together -- i.e., why is there not a underground gay black scene organized around a new kind of underground gay black dance music?
again, i assume that gay blacks are a core constituency for r'n'b -- and yet, r'n'b is commercial music -- so why no new underground music?
vfozi said:
fifth, this is absolutely bonkers: "but i think that if black gay culture were to evolve another kind of dance music or scene, then house music would be abandoned en masse shortly thereafter by whites"
why? i think if you look at history of hip culture in the 20th century, that gay black hipsters were the ones truly in the vanguard -- and that white taste followed gay black taste
again, this is a gross simplification
but the original question was -- "why don't white middle class people get into the super innovative sounds of the heterosexual black street?" -- and i'm suggesting that the answer is that that's not how the dynamic works -- rather, the dynamic is for hip white taste to follow gay black developments
vfozi said:
finally, if you want an easy target to hang the black american unease about "house music" on, you can hang it on an uneasiness about drugs
except that i think gay culture in general, whether black or white, is far more drug friendly than straight culture, especially in america
(and i say this having plenty of experience of gay clubs and culture, and having had plenty of gay friends, both black and white)
moreover, the question i posed is not "why have gay blacks abandoned house music" -- rather, my question is, "why have gay blacks not evolved a new kind of underground dance music?"