Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Hotness, in which NYMary uses the ongoing heat wave to consider the role of sexiness in pop

The proposal recently shared with me by a friend: It is impossible to be really successful as a band unless one is hot. And I mean one: you can let two or even three members of a band go, imagewise, but at least one must focus the libidinal energy of your average teenage girl.

Example: Cheap Trick.
I love Cheap Trick, but there's no denying that you always had two shooting for the hotness factor and two shooting for the quirky factor, and that's okay. Once, the divine watertiger interviewed them, and she was crushed to find (1) Tom Petersson not in attendance, and (2) Robin Zander hiding an ooky cold sore behind a bandanna (shades of Spinal Tap!). Neilsen's always been smart and thoughtful (loved him in The Big One--"You just wrote a Yardbirds song!") but not, you know, hot.

I don't really know how I feel about this proposal, I have to say. I mean, I guess when I myself was a teenage girl, the hotness factor had something to do with my early choices, but not in any determinant fashion. Anyone who owned The Clash couldn't have been making too many decisions based on hotness.

I will confess to longstanding (and, in some cases, ongoing) crushiness for my childhood idols. But hot was never enough. I had a Sean Cassidy poster, for example, but I never had a Sean Cassidy record. (And I certainly never saw him in concert, **coughDeepToejcough**) The Knack, yes. Shoes, yes. Even the Cars (though the hotness factor begins to stretch at this point. Does anyone want to stand up for Benjamin Orr?) And, er, Wayne Gretzky, but that was somewhat uncharacteristic of me (this was before sports stars generally had posters, pre-Michael Jordan, and my Gretzky posters were actually ads for various kinds of hockey equipment, and ordered from the back of Hockey News). In any case, like The Great One, it was never enough for me for a boy to be cute.

So here's my question: I guess if you can swing it, it's a good thing to be talented and attractive, to "make the girls swoon." But is it really necessary?

And a related question: how sexist is it to assume that women will only listen to a band with good-looking members? Maybe not at all, but I dunno. Maybe it's the weather making me cranky, since I'm generally willing to credit libido with a fair amount of power.

5 comments:

Fox said...

I used to have the biggest crush EVER on Tom Petty. I was 12 years old and had heard "Free Fallin'" for the first time. Mind you, Petty is about the furthest thing from hot this side of Meatloaf (who, incidentally, had a hot chick in his videos) or Ringo Starr (who, if you believe Liam Neeson in "Love Actually", married a Bond Girl...). I think women respond to talent, often in a way that's almost as visceral as their Other Responses (read: to front-man hotness).

Anonymous said...

Random thoughts on hotness:
1) "Hotness" can make a band, but a band can also make one "hot." Like fox's Tom Petty example. Or Gene Simmons, one of the ugliest men alive, who somehow turned a rock band aimed at pre-adolescent boys into a means to sleeping with thousands of women.
2) The Clash? Paul Simonon was, in fact, hot.
3) The Cars? A band that exuded no "vibe" whatsoever, and that is something that is severely lacking in their music. Also, I've heard many stories of people walking out on the Cars in concert.
4) Sean Cassidy? I was 7 years old, for Christ's sake! Plus he was one of the Hardy Boys. And "Da Doo Ron Ron" was a huge hit! Plus, his hair looked really, really soft.
5) Pop music is metaphor, substitute and facilitator for sex. If we didn't have libidos, there would be no reason to listen to it.

NYMary said...

Sorry 'bout outing you there, DeepToej. Expect some ribbing at the Elvis Costello show tonight. Whose idea was it to see Sean Cassidy, then, if not yours?

I take your point #5 as holy writ.

refinnej said...

I'll stand up for Orr.. Interesting that you bring up the Cars as I have just spent 7 hours in a car listening to The Cars greatest hits. As the CD repeated for the 10th time I had plenty of time to reflect. Amazing how not all their songs even stick in the mind. But the one's Orr sings do.

That's why he's hot.. It's not just that he's easy on the eyes, it's the voice too. For me, there's the intelligence factor. Nothing more irritating than a stupid man... Don't care how nice looking he is...

Jeff (no, the other one) said...

Speaking of hotness and related band-appeal:

http://www.rockandrollconfidential.com/hall/index.php

In case you haven't seen this, be prepared to laugh your ass off; spew coffee; or other reaction of your choice.