"Too Funky" by George Michael

George Michael's sexuality had long been an open secret by 1992, when he recorded Too Funky - along with two other tracks* - for the AIDS/HIV charity album Red Hot + Dance; I mean, obviously this video could only have been made by a gay man. Seriously, just look at it!**

A n y w a y... The fact that his coming to terms with being gay represented a personal struggle for him and he wasn't simply remaining closeted for the sake of his career - or because he belonged to some crackpot religion founded by a closet case, as a strictly hypothetical for instance - kept many of the usual suspects (like Outlook magazine and its attack poodles Queer Nation) at respectful bay.

Nevertheless, it would be another half dozen years before the words would actually come out of his mouth, and then they only did so because he was caught in flagrante cliché with an undercover cop in a public men's room in Los Angeles...

*The provocatively-named (and -themed, given the state of his closetedness at the time) Do You Really Want to Know and Happy.
**Technically the video was directed by Thierry Mugler, and in it his own outrageous fashions adorn such catwalk stalwarts as Julie Newmar, Linda Evangelista, Tyra Banks, Beverly Peele, Nadja Auermann, Shana Zadrick, Emma Wiklund, Rossy de Palma, and Estelle Hallyday under the frenzied supervision of harried show organizer Lipsinka.  Still, methinks Mugler is no stranger to the mysteries of man-on-man love...

*