Why did the Grammys "back" LGBTQ?

Author | Ding Qianwen Edit | Fan Zhihui

"LGBTQ (i.e. sexual minorities) musicians make 2022 a benchmark year." 

This is the summary made by LGBTQ+ new media brand Them, which reviewed the European and American music scene in 2022, and this evaluation was effectively certified at this year's Grammy Awards. 

At the 65th Grammy Awards on February 6, LGBTQ musicians such as Sam Smith, Kim Petras, and Brandi Carlile, as well as musicians such as Beyonce and Lizzo who supported this group, occupied half of the Grammys, and for the first time, LGBTQ musicians covering lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups won awards. 

It is worth mentioning that the two daughters of "lesbian" singer Brandi Carlile and her wife also appeared on the stage as the pre-performance newspaper curtain, and such a public appearance of the lesbian singer family is also rare in the Grammys. 

In the eyes of the public, since 2012 when it became the first major awards ceremony to remove gender classification, it is likely that the Grammys will now support LGBTQ artists more openly than ever before. 

The Grammys have an indissoluble bond with LGBTQ

Since its inception in 1958, the Grammys have actually had an inseparable historical relationship with the LGBTQ community, constantly refreshing the participation space of this minority musician and bringing them mainstream recognition. 

As early as 1984, the Grammys presented the Best New Artist Award to the popular rock band Culture Club, which also made member Boy George the first gay person to publicly win a Grammy Award; Since 1971, Elton John, who is also LGBTQ, has been nominated and won several Grammy awards, and was awarded the "Grammy Legend Award" in 1999, and was awarded the "Music Care Person of the Year" at the 42nd Grammy in 2000. 

That year, he also performed with the Backstreet Boys on his 1975 hit single "Philadelphia Freedom," also written in honor of LGBTQ pioneer Billie Jean King-John. 

Not only that, K.D. Lang, an alternative country-style "lesbian" singer immersed in grotesque and exaggeration, has also shined at multiple Grammy Awards. After winning the Best Country Singing Collaboration Award in 1989, K.D. Lang won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Music Performance in 1992, when he announced "coming out". And it is K.D. Lang who can still be recognized by the mainstream music industry without discrimination after disclosing his "lesbian" identity, and it also prompts more LGBTQ musicians to stand up and disclose their emotional world.

Melissa Etheridge, who is also a lesbian rocker, also won the Grammy for Best Female Rock Artist twice in 1993 and 1995, setting off a female rock craze in the 90s. In 2005, the pioneer singer at the forefront of anti-discrimination LGBTQ activities was again nominated for the 47th Grammy Award for Best Individual Rock Vocal Performance, and his bald head image and "I Run For Life" scene for the first time due to breast cancer chemotherapy also became "one of the 50 greatest moments in Grammy history". 

In addition, even non-LGBTQ musicians have created historic moments on the Grammys. 

In the 54th Grammy Live broadcast in 2011, Lady Gaga sang "Born This Way" and emphasized the core meaning of the lyrics "Whether it is same-sex, heterosexual or intersexual, transgender, Western Europe is on a bright road and is born with the right to live", which was later regarded as one of the Grammy classic scenes that spoke up for the LGBTQ community. 

This year's 65th Grammys showed a more inclusive attitude towards LGBTQ musicians. 

More than half of the finalists in the previously announced awards are LGBTQ musicians; On the night of the ceremony, in addition to Brandi Carlile's two awards for Best Rock Singer and Best Rock Song, Kim Petras, the first transgender winner who was enough to go down in Grammy history, won the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance Award with gay singer Sam Smith. 

Kim Petras also emphasized: "I just want to thank all the transgender legends who came before me for opening the door here and allowing me to stand here tonight. "In a sense, it also breaks down the gender walls between the traditional binary gender and transgender musicians in music.

At the same time, with the album "Renaissance", which pays tribute to the LGBTQ community, it won 4 Grammys Beyonce, and became the most Grammy singer in history with a total of 32 trophies. In accepting the award for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album, she said her late gay uncle Johnny had a deep influence on her musical aesthetic and called out to the LGBTQ community, "Thank you for your love, thank you for creating this genre."

It can be said that this year's Grammys have given mainstream recognition to LGBTQ singers active in the music field for the first time in history. As GLAAD Vice President Anthony Allen Ramos said in a statement, "The Grammys are reminding the world how influential LGBTQ people are in creating music." 

How does LGBTQ affect the pop music scene?

The activity of LGBTQ people in the music field is nothing new, and it is precisely because of the influence of this group that it has injected a different source of inspiration into the music scene. 

As Beyonce mentioned, the dance music craze influenced by the LGBTQ community is an extremely important milestone for Disco, House Music and others. In popular perception, the source of dance music is to impact the dominant blues music on the radio station, which attracts listeners with fast-paced, more dynamic music, and because of its inclusiveness to listeners, LGBTQ people became the main consumer group of dance halls in the 70s of the 20th century, and Disco was gradually labeled as "gay music" by some people. 

At the time, LGBTQ people were still less accepted in the public sphere, and were shut out of many high-end and elegant clubs, and these minorities chose to use the same considered rude dance hall as a place to "promote" dance music. DJ Frankie Knuckles, for example, combined gay, drag shows, and dance music parties in the mid-70s, and quickly spread to dance halls around the world and was emulated with a stunning scene. 

And as dance music has gone from LGBTQ music to everyone's music, the dance music craze has also entered the mainstream from the ground, constantly influencing the shaping of pop music. For example, in 2005, Madonna's dance song "Hung Up" topped the music charts in 41 countries around the world, setting a Guinness World Record. In addition, genres such as soul music, alternative music, and evangelism also have the efforts of LGBTQ people, George Michael, Ricky Martin, etc. are very representative singers. 

On the other hand, LGBTQ musicians are also breaking the concept of gender and gradually promoting non-binary music production. Taking the genre of country music as an example, its heyday has two major characteristics, pompous makeup and love expression themes, which have a very obvious LGBTQ shadow. 

As country singers such as Patrick Haggerty, K.D. Lang, Chely Wright and others have boldly disclosed their LGBTQ identities over the past few decades, their stories about first love, heartbroken love, unrequited love, loneliness, how to heal themselves and other non-binary content that have been shut out by the music industry have also filled a certain musical gap. 

At the same time, many well-known singers in the field of country music such as Garth Brooks and Rascal Flatts have also hinted at their support for LGBTQ in their works, even if these songs were also at risk of being taken down by radio and record labels, but they have gradually broken the traditional stereotype that country music can only be heterosexual and white, and have influenced it to this day. For example, T.J. Osborne, who announced his coming out in 2021, is the first gay artist to sign a major country music record company, and black LGBTQ country music artists such as Allison Russell and Joy Oladokun have also gained a large number of listeners. 

This change is also due to the fact that the music industry is more or less influenced by more enlightened social effects, and in the long run, continuing to silence the voices of LGBTQ country musicians will only make the genre more isolated. After all, LGBTQ musicians no longer need to rely entirely on record labels to spread their music after the advent of the streaming era, and the audience is not only radio to discover musicians. 

A large number of listeners belonging to the LGBTQ community have gradually become important supporters of mainstream singers due to their sticky loyalty and high attention to the music market.

In the "Power of LGBTQ+ Music Report" released by Luminate last year, it was mentioned that the average LGBTQ group spends $72 more on music per year than the average listener, of which spending 18% more on music peripherals per month than the general population, 27% more than the average listener on physical records per month, and 31% more likely to buy vinyl records than ordinary music listeners; Spend 6% more on live music than the general population, and 15% more on concerts in particular. 

Nielsen Music has also described LGBTQ as "an audience that cannot be ignored in the music industry, and they all have a strong interest in different kinds of music."

However, it is precisely because of this that musicians' attitudes towards discrimination against LGBTQ people have indirectly become an important factor affecting their careers. For example, Dababy publicly expressed homophobic remarks at the Rolling Lound music festival in the summer of 2021, and initially refused to apologize to the LGBTQ community and was boycotted, and under the butterfly effect, many performances such as Lollapalooza Music Festival and Summer Of Soul Music Festival were also removed from the list, and Dua Lipa, who collaborated with the hit "Levitating", also cut off his seat for this. 

It is undeniable that LGBTQ is also not to be underestimated in the promotion of the performance market, and this group as a type of music audience has a very high enthusiasm for music consumption. For example, in 2018, the LA Pride Festival for LGBTQ people in Los Angeles, USA, set a record for the first sold-out performance in Los America's West Hollywood area in 48 years. Last year, during the Sanremo Festival and IGLTA in Italy, there was also an influx of LGBTQ people, which according to GFK data generated 2.7 billion euros in turnover for the Italian tourism industry and more than 75 billion euros in Europe. 

As the music consumption power of the LGBTQ community is gradually recognized, the music festivals, concerts and other performance activities created for this group are becoming more and more diverse. For example, in 2019, Troye Sivan and Chali XCX co-curated the Go West Fest festival to celebrate the unity and inclusion, artistry and creativity of the LGBTQ community. On the other hand, LGBTQ people are also invisibly promoting the diversified development of the performance market. 

From the 20th century to the present, the influence of LGBTQ on the European and American music scene and even the global music scene of pop music can be described as natural, this group not only redefines popularity, but also pushes LGBTQ musicians to new heights, gradually occupying a solid acre and a third in today's streaming era. 

It can be said that they are also shaping new fashion trends in the modern music consumption market. 

epilogue

LGBTQ musicians or musicians who support LGBTQ groups have gradually raised their voices, and have formed a rainbow color that cannot be ignored in the music scene, affecting the audience's aesthetic cognition. 

At present, the gender boundaries of the European and American music scene have actually become blurred, but looking at the world, it is still a long way to completely break the barrier. As Years & Years member Olly Alexander once told the BBC, "We usually know music stars who only disclose their LGBTQ leanings in the middle or end of their careers, but this is unbearable for the community." ” 

After all, even Beyonce, despite thanking the LGBTQ community on the Grammys, is still being scolded as "hypocritical" for his "gay and illegal" Dubai performance, and how to maintain a balance in valuing LGBTQ, rather than just because of "political correctness" or propaganda gimmicks, is the most basic respect and tolerance. 

Overall, the powerful impetus of LGBTQ in today's music industry cannot be ignored. After the age of streaming, not only has the way music is consumed changed, but pop music has also become more and more concerned about this minority group. This also means that musicians are given the space to express their sexual identity in their works through structural changes in the industry. 

Similarly, the commercial care that only appears in the upstream of the industry such as record companies and copyright companies during the "Pride Month" or at a specific time is also in urgent need of change. After all, LGBTQ is no longer the reason for restricting musicians' works, but is conducive to recovering musical concepts and aesthetic perspectives that have been ignored by the industrialization of music.