
IT'S not exactly a mathematical or scientific thing.
But there are certain people (good God may some of them rest in peace) that inspired me when I was writing my book.
And even then, it was certain aspects about those people that got me thinking rather than anything very specific.
If you're as old as me, you'll remember how Madonna used to go around saying that "there's a gay man trapped inside me". So I gave him life.
Of course, I couldn't bring him to life without tipping my hat to Bowie and acknowledging how he'd shaken everything up.
Nor could I write a piece of pop fiction and commit the crime that society en masse has done since the 80s by ignoring Boy George, one of Bowie's spiritual alumni. Boy George and Culture Club don't get enough credit for how they brought queer to the mainstream. But with Boy George, I was more interested in his Eastern twists: the Hare Krishna and Buddhist inspired elements to his 80s personality- and so that took me in another direction. The eighties in particular were full of bleached blonde acts who were everything for a while: I still love me a bit of Billy Idol, or Nik Kershaw or Howard Jones every now and then.
A lot of us poo-poo pop music, but really, mainstream pop is usually the entry point for music lovers all around the world. There are a lot of acts in the mainstream who just churn out product for however long the public wants them, but there were, and remain, a handful of artists who, always do something more: something challenging, and fascinating, and, when they don't get it right, are brave enough to get back up again and try something new.
Mainstream pop is an obstacle course. There's a fair bit of crap floating around, but, if you know how to navigate it, there's nothing more fulfilling than a great song (from an artist with great look and their own point of view).
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