"They're here, they're queer, they sing! Men Out Loud's mouthpiece, Steve Steinberg, wants to send a shout out to those openly gay performers who came before him-- people like k.d.lang and Melissa Etheridge-- although he's quick to acknowledge that they came out after they were famous.
'We're probably the first group on a major label to be signed as a gay pop group,' Steinberg says. He's probably right; most other gay acts (Pansy Division, Ani DiFranco, the Indigo Girls) began or remain on indie labels. So, Men Out Loud's Sweet Enuf 2 Eat (Pure/Mercury Records), recorded earlier this year, is a landmark of sorts.
Men Out Loud is made up of four reformed gay choir members who wanted to do more mainstream pop songs with a cappella tendencies. Sweet Enuf 2 Eat dabbles with dance songs, doo-wop, and power ballads (Les Mis's showstopper "Empty Chairs At Empty Tables" and the Bee Gees' "More Than A Woman")-- with all the pronouns intact. They're energized, dance-y versions of songs you know, as well as some you wouldn't expect on a gay choral album.
'We wanted something for gay people who would say,'This is sooo gay,' but we also wanted to reach straight people too,' Steinberg says. 'So what if they don't get the irony?'
But the crown jewel in Sweet Enuf 2 Eat's collection may be Madonna's "Express Yourself," which gives new meaning to the lyric, "... makes you feel like a queen on a throne ..."
'I want to create a new category of camp,' Steinberg says. 'It's called butch camp, and that's what this song is.' Whether or not anyone is really butch enough to cover Madonna remains to be seen, but if she calls, the Men Out Loud boys are ready to talk."