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Vontanner et al,

The problem I see with having an exclusively Gay/Lesbian type of "category" is that it does the opposite of what I thought most people wanted.. it's segragates instead of integrates.. It's like my total aversion of having "best black artist" type awards..ack! The irony for me was when Michael Jackson used to win both the black artist award and the regular artist awards.. then I think most people realized how stupid the distinction was.. and we saw less and less "black artist" awards.

The point was made that in most cases, the genres are music production related.. there are some speciality categories (like Holiday, CC, Novelty) where lyrics are what sets it apart. As for the Male and Female Singer Songwriter awards, our distinctions there started as an album only award, and was for solo artists who wrote and sang the songs, which had a diverse array of genres on the album which didn't allow for placement in folk, contemp, pop, rock etc.. we added the singer-songwriter song award this year for the best songs written and performed by a single writer/singer. The reason we separated it into male and female was simple because we get more quality entries into those 2 genres than probably the next 4 largest genres combined.. we want to recognize great music.. that was a reasonable way to do it. Plus, if you tell someone you are going out to see a singer songwriter perform.. most people have a fairly reasonable and accurate idea for what that means musicially.. same as if you go to a Metal concert or a Dance club to hear Dance divas or a Jazz show etc..

As for Out and Proud, we have no shortage of openly gay artists who enter the awards and have won in every genre. Should we pull them out of their mainstream genres where they are winning and relegate them to a "special" and segregated genre like someone in a circus sideshow? That really seems like a step backwards to me. If our gay and lesbian members come to me in numbers and really want that distinction, I might consider it, but this is the first ever such request, because frankly, our gay and lesbian members have done just fine winning awards in mainstream genres on their own with no special distinction being neccessary. Also, what types of music would be included in an Out and Proud genre? Would it be stereotypical stuff like Dance, Cabaret, etc? If it were all styles of music, how would I even know which artists were gay and which weren't? (Sure, I know some artists who are clearly open about their sexuality like you guys are, but we get 10,000 albums and 150,000 songs.. and I am not going to try and guess who is or isn't gay.. nor do I want to "out" anyone who isn't interested in being "outed."

My former bandmate Michael (who passed away last summer and I wrote a full length article about for those who remember) was openly gay, but I am quite certain he would have felt it was a big mistake to segregate his music and other gay and lesbian members music into their own "genre." Sexual preference to me isn't a genre. And then you have issues about transgendered, bisexual etc.. and where do they go?

I think the biggest irony of all is the fact that the gay influence in all music is very strong.. in fact, I think music has been one of the first and foremost artistic success stories for gay and lesbians to come out and be accepted by mainstream music lovers for a long time. Many of the top artists are gay or lesbian. I can't imagine those artists would want to be pulled out of their fields and placed in a separate holding pen when they are doing perfectly fine leading the charts in the mainstream.

I welcome any additional viewpoints on this...

Brian