5) Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury took the sexual pomp and theatrics of glam rock and removed much of the mystique, creating something more relatable and organic. While his unusual mixture of fragility and arena-rock ridiculousness made him a worldwide icon, it was probably his unflagging commitment to short shorts, moustaches and leather-daddy caps that made him a sex symbol. There's also, of course, the simple fact that the vocals to "Don't Stop Me Now" and "Somebody to Love" came out of his mouth. By virtue of that alone, Freddie Mercury could have bagged just about anybody on the planet. — J.B. |
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4) Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger took the sexual undercurrents of his musical predecessors and removed all of that boring subtlety. While his clean-cut peers were making wink-and-nod appeals to girls' mothers, a longhaired, sneering Jagger was demanding a lay like it was a paycheck. Other groups stood in place and smiled politely at hordes of screaming teenage girls, but Mick was the first performer to visibly feed off the sexual energy rock music gives its priests. His openness about sexual tension and its accompanying frustration brought a spirit of nervous anger to rock and roll that played a considerable part in bringing down the dopey, often willfully ignorant culture of the 1960s. What sociopolitical ramifications has your sexuality had? — J.B. |
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3) Morrissey
In the heyday of the Smiths, everyone had a theory about Morrissey's sexuality. (Bi? Gay? Celibate, as he always insisted?) Whatever it was, by cannily refusing to discuss it, he made it implicit in every word out of his mouth. (The celibacy thing has cleared up a little; when we saw David Fricke ask him about it at SXSW 2006, he simply purred, "Everybody has. . . dry spells.") Repression is hot, and Morrissey's lyrics always hummed with unfulfilled lust. After all, the very first track on the first Smiths album finds Moz sweetly crooning, "I dreamt about you last night, and I fell out of bed twice," then making the come-on more explicit still: "You can pin and mount me like a butterfly." Still more engorged is the first verse of "Handsome Devil": "You ask me the time/ But I sense something more/ And I would like to give you what I think you're asking for." That he wants to get his hands on this handsome devil's mammary glands only emphasizes that his preferences regarding genitals are beside the point. He wants us all. We could go on, but this picture probably explains his appeal better than we ever could. — P.S.
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2) David Bowie
Bowie hasn't been human in about forty years. When he was twenty, during the "I Dig Everything" era, when he was still singing sunny '60s pop jams, he was just another sharp young Brit with a nice face. Then he wrote "Space Oddity" and transformed into a constantly morphing vessel for sex, a living body for the spirit of attraction. The suave man in the suit, Ziggy Stardust, the generously cod-pieced Jareth. Bowie isn't a sexy frontman. He's a freaking god. — J.C.
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1) Prince
Dig if you will a picture: Prince is ahead of you in the grocery-store line. (This is hypothetical, of course: His Royal Badness has people to pick up his arugula.) Would you even notice the guy? A scrawny five-foot-two, blighted by pube-esque facial hair. . . yet here he is, the sexiest frontman in rock history. Talent is sexy, and however much the Purple One has managed to self-sabotage since Sign o' the Times, he's still got talent coming out of his shiny pants. Let that diminutive androgyne pick up a guitar, or a microphone, then go ahead and stick a fork in yourself. We'll give the last word to his coolest sidekicks ever, Wendy and Lisa. Wendy backs us up: "It doesn't matter what sexuality, gender you are. You're in the room with him and he gives you that look and you're like, 'Okay, I'm done. It's over.' He's Casanova. He's Valentino." Lisa? Your thoughts? "He's like a fancy lesbian." Well, maybe that says it all. — P.S. |
©2009 Nerve.com
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