Must have genuine musical talent. No one who is all hype. And on that note…
Must have written a significant portion of the greatest music they are known for. This automatically disqualifies Elvis, for instance.
Must have vast quantities of sex appeal.
Must have great showmanship.
Must have a lasting legacy.
Doesn’t have to be a solo artist, but must be so distinct from the band that they might as well be.
Can’t be some obscure but intensely worshipped figure like Morrissey or something, because that’s not a rock star. By definition a rock star is a bigass star that most people are familiar with.
Using these criteria, which I think are reasonable, I’m sure you’ll tell me if you disagree, I think the greatest rock star of all time is David Bowie. He’s a solid 10 on every point, and I think he should score 15 at least on #3 since his sex appeal is to both sexes. There are other rock stars that males can appreciate as sex objects, and certainly gay men are going to find lots of purely straight rock stars more attractive than Bo, but he sells it, and sells it to straight and gay alike.
As runner up, I might be tempted to stump for Elton John, but the poor guy just doesn’t have a teaspoon of sex appeal to his name and never did. But I think you could make the argument that his musical ability and showmanship were so excellent that he almost overcomes the deficit.
So here’s my poll and I’m interested to see who y’ll think I forgot.
If you have additions that I forgot, please share your thoughts about them.
Let the poll begin!
P.S. I urge you to try and be as objective as possible. We all have our favorites, that’s a given, but they might not really rate as the greatest of all time.
Your criteria make this tricky, because I think the “great musical talent” and the “showmanship” often occur in two separate different individuals in a band.
Robert Plant scores very highly on most points - especially the sex appeal and showmanship. But does being a great vocalist equal “great musical talent”? I bet some will argue that it doesn’t. (And lets not get in to the debate on some of Led Zeppelin’s… ahem… recycling rather than writing).
Jimi Hendrix ticks most of your boxes quite well.
Jack White scores a solid ten out of ten on most of them, but is too young and we can’t judge the “legacy” bit yet.
David Bowie has sex appeal? He’s an anemic wisp of rock star.
I’m a 100% straight heterosexual male, but I gotta tell ya’, there’s something so utterly fascinating about Jim Morrison that if we were stuck on a desert island together, I’d probably consider changing teams.
Exactly who I came in to mention… and exactly why I hesitated in doing so.
Nevertheless, when you’re talking greatest rock star of all time for the reasons listed above and a number of others, it’s hard to go wrong with the guy (either actually) at the front of Led frikkin’ Zeppelin.
Plant was the first famous person I ever fantasized having actual sex with, vs. running down the beach holding hands with.
He’s got the sex appeal, charisma, showmanship (I saw him live four times) - but he didn’t really write. So he got left off the list. Plus, as delightful a front man as he was, the band was bigger than him.
He’s got the musicianship and the showmanship, but I think he’s really indefensible as having sex appeal. I mean, I’d certainly fuck him, no problem, he’s not as hopeless as Elton, but it’s really not part of his Rock Star bag of tricks.
I know, and I did that deliberately. Because if you open it up the list gets too long and too hard to decide, since some excel in certain areas. The writing qualification really scrubbed the list bigtime.
The tight criteria also made it almost impossible to find any women outside of Madonna. Tina Turner really doesn’t write her stuff, Janis Joplin absolutely did have sex appeal, her plain looks notwithstanding, but she didn’t write. All the other women I could think of just weren’t big enough. Joan Jett, Chrissie Hynde, Pat Benatar…
