Rhian Blunll and Mia McKenna-Bce speak wh GAY TIMES about playg LGBTQ+ rol and their characters “sexually charged” romance.
Contents:
- THE SURPRISG STORY OF HOW ABBA BEME BELOVED GAY INS
- MIA KIRSHNER’S GAY/LBIAN RUMORS, SEXUALY, AND DATG LIFE EXPLORED
- MARA GAY: FACTS TO KNOW ABOUT THE CONSCIENT AND BRAVE JOURNALIST
THE SURPRISG STORY OF HOW ABBA BEME BELOVED GAY INS
Mara Gay is the child of an ter-racial marriage and this has given her the unique abily to thk about issu om multiple pots of view. She is currently workg as a member of the edorial board of the New York Tim. * is mia gay *
Gay revelers (and their lucky straight iends) are wavg their arms, strikg genue pos and shamelsly sgg along to the sugary 45-year-old pop standard that’s bee synonymo wh queer nightlife. ” and “Macho Man” for themselv, but there’s no way they’ll take this one om to multiple stage and screen rnatns of “Mamma Mia!, ” fabuloly garish stum om gay signer Owe Sandström and nsummately crafted songs more retroactively popular than their ’70s and early ’80s heyday, ABBA has for s been the bull’s-eye of the LGBTQ mil universe. Ostensibly cheerful but packed wh drama and peppered wh Sndavian melancholy, the Stockholm mixed-genr quartet’s pop has blueprted the glz of untls gay and gay-iendly acts om Kylie Mogue to Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert to Lil Nas X — a sgular achievement for a band that hadn’t pleted an album 40 years.
This week releasg “Voyage, ” s first new LP sce 1981 and a teaser for next year’s London ncerts featurg 3D avatars, ABBA is to many gay fans what the Rollg Ston are to straights — archetyp whose appeal transcends time, place and age. While even ins like Madonna polarize opn, nearly every lor of the gay rabow agre on wasn’t always the se. Back when Donna Summer reigned as disputable dancg queen, ABBA didn’t get much gay club play, not even you-know-what.
Y, there were exceptns: Larry Levan — the fluential gay Black DJ at New York’s legendary and largely Black/LGBTQ Paradise Garage — adored Cher’s “Take Me Home. ” But gay DJs and their dienc mostly favored unrground divas and obscure orchtral matros they disvered and popularized, not succsful pop acts plucked om AM changed the early ’80s when the U. Straight clubs shifted to eclectic funk and new wave, but the well of speedy gay dancefloor arias nearly ran dry.
MIA KIRSHNER’S GAY/LBIAN RUMORS, SEXUALY, AND DATG LIFE EXPLORED
” “The first time he did that, was a mistake, ” rells Robbie Llie, DJ veteran of New York Cy’s the Sat, the ultimate ’80s gay dis. ”Like Llie’s siarly beloved mix of Jimmy Ruff’s “Hold on to My Love, ” Rodriguez’s ABBA transformatn appeared only on Dis, a gay-owned subscriptn remix service. This forced a 12-ch release overseas of “Lay All Your Love on Me’s” paratively ordary LP cut that prerved the exclivy of Rodriguez’s versn, while s longevy proved that dancers — particularly gay on — still craved fast and lty club anthems.
In 1982, ABBA’s North Amerin label issued s kdred uptempo tune “The Visors” as a sgle, but once aga, a gay subscriptn-only remix service, Hot Tracks, supplied the extend ABBA that year rerd what would be for s s fal ssns, U. Producers such as Stock Aken Waterman filled the void wh gay-targeted “hi-NRG” tracks that crossed to the mastream via Dead or Alive, Bananarama, Mogue and Summer, while everyone om the Lat Rasls to the Pet Shop Boys replited Rodriguez’s mache-gun hi-NRG ran s urse, England’s Erasure released 1992’s “Abba-que, ” a love letter of ver versns. Its gay lead sger, Andy Bell, and his straight synth sikick Vce Clarke even re-created their source material’s “Take a Chance on Me” vio drag, wh U.
MARA GAY: FACTS TO KNOW ABOUT THE CONSCIENT AND BRAVE JOURNALIST
In 1994, the oldi promently popped up the movi “Muriel’s Weddg, ” which gave gay fave Toni Collette her big break, and “The Adventur of Priscilla, Queen of the Dert, ” a trans-tastic road edy. At the absolute nadir of the AIDS plague, ABBA was reborn to paragons of gloom-relievg if bombastic outfs and bubblegum hooks had been the only gear ABBA gave to LGBTQ culture, s gay appeal would’ve plummeted after the lifavg arrival of antiviral cktails.
Our survival strategy has always been to unter hate wh love; we manift gayns to endure s on the most fundamental level, ABBA’s heterosexualy is more overt than the straightt rock dus.
Lbian separatists and gay male misogynists might gmble, but most of relish ABBA’s unmatched genr pary and equaly. This is ABBA’s gift to LGBTQ culture — an oasis wh the mega-mastream that Rodriguez and other gay pneers helped Walters is the thor of the forthg book “Mighty Real: The Mic That Built LGBTQ Ameri.