Mighty Real : A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000 by Barry Walters

The definitive history of LGBTQ music, from Stonewall to RuPaul, and its impact on culture and American life

From the underground dancefloors of the Seventies to the global charts of the Nineties, LGBTQ artists and audiences shaped music’s sound, style, and spirit. In Mighty Real, veteran journalist Barry Walters chronicles its LGBTQ history from the Velvet Underground to the 21st century’s dawn as he honors the artists who redefined gender, defied tradition, and dared to challenge sexual norms with the help of a record business that wasn’t as straight as commonly believed.

Drawing on his decades as a New York- and San Francisco-based music critic, Walters examines how LGBTQ musicians, music industry executives, and fans reshaped the mainstream. He connects the dots between David Bowie’s dazzling reinventions, Grace Jones’s androgynous glamor, Prince’s boundary-shattering sexuality, and the radical candor of the Indigo Girls to prove they’re all doing the same thing: fighting oppression.

With exuberance, insight, and encyclopedic knowledge, Walters brings to life the songs and society that filled dancefloors, bedrooms, and streets as he uncovers yesteryear’s coded LGBTQ messages that paved the way for today’s unabashedly queer hits. Mighty Real is a masterful love letter to the music that liberated generations, and it’s written in a page-turning, personal way that blurs distinctions between chronicle and memoir. This is the rare and revolutionary music history told to help you laugh, cry, and then rally against lingering inequality.
 
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“Barry Walters has been writing about music from an American queer perspective for five decades. This is his testament: a musical, personal and political history that explores and celebrates the LGBTQ contribution to popular music.” —Neil Tennant, Pet Shop Boys
 
“Painting a vivid mural of genius and provocation that music lovers—queer or not—will devour, Barry Walters delivers as much energy, heartbreak, and humor as the artists he covers. This treasure trove of queer music history provides the perspective left out of the music magazines I scoured as a kid.”
—Jake Shears, Scissor Sisters

“In Rolling Stone, back in 1999, Barry Walters’s coverage of Breakdown was the first time one of my albums got a serious review. Here and now, he’s once again bringing the respect and insight that’s often been denied LGBTQ artists. He understands us because he is us.” —Melissa Etheridge