Ah, don’t you just love it when a crusty old fifty-year old tries to “get down with the kids”? Not literally of course: that would be illegal and possibly land him in jail! But trying to keep up with all the slang and buzzwords, and the new meanings for old words (“Sick” now means “great”, apparently!)
can be wearing for an old codger like me, whose best friend is Mister Oxford and Mister Roget (forget it: if you didnt get that reference -- hah! --- you’re too young and I ain’t explainin’ it to ya youngster!) but I do my best. I do know though that these days when the kids refer to “epic fail” hey generally mean something has not gone as well as it should, in fact, it has gone spectacularly bad. Hey, even I can understand the thinking behind that!
So this section will focus on ideas down through the years in music that were bad ones, ill-advised ventures that were never going to sail (ooh-hoo! Slick little segue there, see ahead!) and make you ask “what in god’s name were they thinking?”
In the Navy --- Village People --- 1979
Yeah. What an inspired idea! Down at Navy Headquarters they’re watching how the YMCAs are filling up with eager young men on the back (ooeer!) of the iconic disco hit by Village People and thinking “We want some of that!” (ooeer again!) so they contact the guys, who duly oblige by recording the above hit single, proclaiming the benefits of the US Navy, a fine marketing and recruitment tool.
Dear God help us. Were the “Top Brass” not aware of the excessively gay nature of YMCA, to say nothing of Village People themselves? In long-running British soap “Coronation Street”, one of the characters, cunningly pretending to be gay so that his live-in mate can be seen as his lover and so not be charged extra rent (seriously: I don’t make these things up!) uses the Village People album in a display to show how gay he is. VP were always considered the gayest band ever and have been parodied many times. They are, to be quite honest, synonymous with the gay culture.
Not that, I hasten to add, there is anything wrong with that, or anyone’s sexual choices or preferences. I don’t like Village People’s music, but not because it’s linked with the gay movement. It’s just not for me. Kylie is also a gay icon and I like a lot of her stuff. Oh, also her music! But if you’re going to promote one of the roughest, toughest institutions in America, try to get people to join up --- “Join the Navy! Become a Man!” (BIG emphasis on the capital M there!) --- then surely it makes little sense to use a band who are inextricably tied in to the world of homosexual preferences and acceptance? Isn’t it the Navy who had the “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy till a while ago? And yet, here they are, using Village People to try to get people to join up? I mean, you might as well have had Motorhead spearhead a teetotal campaign, or asked Kerry King to run anger management classes!
It;s a sad irony, surely, that the military service who prevented homosexuals from serving would use the most iconically gay band in the world to advertise their services. I don’t honestly know if Village People are gay, and it doesn’t really matter. The point is they were, have been, and always will be identified with being gay, and that’s surely not the image the manly US Navy wants to project to the world?
In the end, as it goes, the project was pulled over protests that taxpayers’ money was being used to shoot a music video, as the Navy provided a warship, dock and setting --- and obviously financial backing --- for what would go on to be a huge hit for the pop group. Not the done thing, and quite right too. But it does make you wonder, do the chiefs at the navy still drink rum, and if so, did they perhaps overdo it the day they came up with this concept?
And did they actually entice any recruits with this song? If so, and if these guys harboured a particular desire to be among other men “in that way”, then I think the US Navy only has itself to blame.