A few days ago, Grammy-winning British songwriter Ed Sheeran has revealed to SBTV in association with NCS that record companies told him, at the beginning of his career, he was quite not the type for the job:
‘Every single label I had gone to at the time had told me this song wasn’t a hit this song wouldn’t work and the fact that I was slightly chubby and ginger wasn’t a good ‘marketing tool’ for them. So yeah it did definitely feel like it wasn’t going to happen. The way I maintained self-belief is that I knew I wasn’t good at anything else so what else was I going to do and secondly with the whole look and songs that the labels rejected I knew it was really important you stay true to yourself. Being an individual makes you stand out from the crowd.’
He is totally right, who are these assholes who had the nerves to tell him his ginger-chubby look wasn’t a good marketing tool?
Of course, it’s a cliché to think there is a rock star look, but does it really matter? Not all rock stars are eye candy, and looks are certainly not everything, nevertheless frontmen tend to have some physical trait that attract attention. Iconic Elvis Presley probably was the first one of all, and since, we have had a long list of frontmen who have demonstrated that look effectively matters: from Bruce Springsteen’s muscular working-class tight tee to David Bowie’s androgynous multifaceted persona, to feminine diminutive Prince and flamboyant Freddie Mercury, there is an endless list of Eddie Vedder, Sting, Elton John, Bon Jovi, David Lee Roth, Steven Tyler,… who all have style and personality, and many of them have managed to make it last forever.
Okay, Axl Rose had the ripped abs, the hair, the tattoos and the music decades ago, but have you seen him lately? He got fat and he doesn’t have a career anymore. Mick Jagger still looks like a teenager if you see him from one of these cheap seats at the Staples center, not if you see him at the Echoplex, but yeah you can’t deny his silhouette of eternal adolescent didn’t help him. I saw Paul McCartney at Amoeba in 2009 (so quite close), and he was a cutie, as I have always imagined him to be. It would be so easy to conclude that lasting in rock music may well be associated with looks, just let’s not forget these people also have talent.
People’s idea of what a true rock star should look like has found its apotheosis in the character played by Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages,… that was ridiculous just like Tome Cruise. There are tons of successful rock stars who never have any ‘interesting look’. Take Phil Collins, he looks like your average plumber or electrician (actually my plumber is better looking, I just called him this week), and nobody can’t deny his successful career. Bono is a very average looking guy, Rivers Cuomo has the nerd look, and what about Thom York? This guy is venerated as a god by herds of hipsters – me included, except I don’t believe in god – and Iman calls him a rat face!
I didn’t see a lot of black men in this list, Jimi Hendrix was probably the last black rock star, and despite Kanye West claiming everywhere he is the greatest rock star, he isn’t. He is a rap star, not a rock star, despite his attempt to live the rock star life, despite his Lennon-envy by proclaiming himself Jesus. Anyway, the difference is that Lennon married an avant-garde artist and activist and was loved and admired by the masses, West is going to marry a reality show famewhore and everybody hates him!
Being a rock star is a hard job, look helps but it’s not everything in the equation, for example dying young, like Lennon, Hendrix, Cobain, Joplin, Morrison and so many others, obviously put you in the pantheon for eternity at Jesus’ side. Being a rock star is a hard job, but it’s not really a job, it has to come naturally, people who work too much at it, like Kanye West, never really achieve the status. Kurt Cobain may be the best example of this, he was probably one of the most reluctant rock stars who has ever existed, but there is no doubt he was one. Being a rock star a gift from nature, and if you have it, staying true to yourself, as Ed Sheeran said, may be your best option.