While today’s on-line discussions about the countless micro-issues concerning the general theme of people’s gender, sexuality and “wokeness” might often be loud, aggressive and sometimes outright hideous at least in our western parts of the world (maybe excluding Trump’s America) for most people it’s not that big an issue anymore to come out as gay. But that is a relatively new achievement. While there were some gay couples in movies, for example, something always tended to go awry in these stories up until at least the noughties and if we go back even a little bit more coming out of the closet was often outright dangerous, especially outside of the big cities.

So while there was some representation in music, Jimmy Sommerville and his flatmates in London were quite unhappy with the inoffensive nature it tended to have as opposed to what they, being openly gay, experienced in everyday life and it was important for them that their band, Bronski Beat, addressed homosexual issues in a political context.

Their breakthrough song, Smalltown Boy, describes the struggles of a queer lad from the country, being attacked by a homophobic gang, outed to his parents by the police and consequently forced to leave the village where he grew up.

The commercial success was proof that the general public had long moved further than the loud bigoted minority.