The Prettiest Star

I suspect we can agree that the late David Cassidy was one of the three or four prettiest (as distinct from handsome) pop stars of the post-Elvis era, but we’’ll probably find that we don’t agree about the physical attractiveness, or lack of it, of many other prominent performers. 

Leslie West

Who, for instance, would you say has been the least attractive male rock star ever? I would nominate Leslie West, he of the morbid obesity and pubic-looking hair, and Ginger Baker, he of the ghastly hyper-English teeth, pallor, and caved-in-looking face,. Ultimately, though, I would  present the cake to Roy Wood, who worked harder at grotesqueness than either. And don’t get me wrong about Mr. West. I hugely admire how fervently he embraced his being as far from pretty as it’s humanly possible to be. When I saw his pre-Mountain group, The Vagrants, at Winterland in San Francisco, opening, unbilled, for The Who, Les waddled out with a bright pink feather boa wrapped around his neck, the circumference of which probably exceeded that of many middle schoolers’ waists. “You got a problem?” the boa seemed to demand. I giggled delightedly. 

There have of course been many very handsome rock groups. Many would surely say that Duran Duran was the handsomest of all, but my own belief is that their average level of pulchritude was exceeded by that of LA’s little known chicano “punk” band Los Illegals. It amuses me to think of my spouse, Dame Zelda, not having allowed Double-Duran’s future lead singer into her own little prog group at Pinner Grammar School because he was chubby, and rather an embarrassment. 

Los Illegals

Duran’s bass player, John Taylor, has to be considered one of the handsomest musicians in rock history, but would you say that he was more gorgeous than Roger Taylor of Queen, or would you assert that it’s an apples-and-oranges comparison given the young Roger’s androgynousness? Many would surely argue that, just as there has never been a better singer than Little Richard, there has never been a handsomer male rock performer than Elvis, though Jon Bon Jovi was quite hot stuff there for a while. I always thought Bon Jovi, the group, sounded like the result of intensive market research, and so am unable to think of him with much fondness. 

There are a great many contenders for ugliest male rock band. Tied for second place we have umpteen late-70s Southern rock bands with multiple guitarists, like the Outlaws and Black Oak Arkansas, and my own favourite, Canned Heat, whose lead singer might be perceived as the apotheosis of the Hell’s Angels look that flourished for several years in spite of the Angels’ dreadful behaviour at Altamont. 

It’s difficult to think of the loveliest and least lovely all-female rock band — and perilous, as doing so invites accusations of sexism. I can’t imagine anyone thinking The Go-Gos lovelier than The Bangles, and Vixen, with their enormous hair, were pretty hot stuff too, in a much more overstated way. Such of their predecessors as Fanny and Birtha seemed intent on being judged solely on the basis of their musicianship, a point of view I have traditionally disdained. 

Janis Joplin

My guess is that if Janis Joplin, who had famously, and very cruelly, been voted Ugliest Man on Campus while in college, had had Vixen’s (or, for that matter, Duran Duran’s) stylists on her team, she might have been perceived as traditionally attractive, but would still be no match for the single most gorgeous rock star of either sex ever, whom I suspect I needn’t name. 

Special mention must be made in closing of an act that shrewdly to neither uniform gorgeousness nor uniform defiant non-gorgeousness. Cheap Trick revelled in the fact of half the group being traditional dreamboats, and the other half the sort of fellows to whom the hotties in high school 

would never have allowed themselves to be seen speaking. In this, they brilliantly married the aesthetics of Duran Duran and The Outlaws, a feat seen neither before nor since.