That Guy Deserves a Punch In The Face(s)

I really hate Rod Stewart. Not just in a, "I don't really care for his music" kind of way, but in the sense that being in an environment where Rod Stewart's music is being played makes me feel physically edgy. It's the sort of sensation you encounter when you're aware that your blood pressure is on the rise due to an overwhelming feeling of emotional distress and an aching desire for that particular moment of awkwardness and discomfort to come to a swift and merciful end.

There are so many reasons to hate Rod Stewart. Yet, many many people love him, or at least like him, and this immediately calls the sum total of the rest of that person's cultural knowledge into question. If you like Rod Stewart, you might also be interested in loads of other things that drive me up a wall. You may be in to a load of other things I hold dear to my heart. But, you like Rod Stewart and for me that is the cultural equivalent of having been a Nazi Party member or a part-time Klansman. Everything else will be cast in doubt because of this nefarious association with a crackle throated, dust-mop headed assbag.

A great deal of my venom for The Rod is that his appeal seems to be so vast and completely inconceivable.  Firstly, he is not a very good singer. Nay, he is a terrible singer. Sure, people like Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Neil Young have made a very nice career for themselves with the same basic level of vocal skill. The fundamental difference is that Rod Stewart is nowhere near the songwriter of those three gentleman and that he is largely seen as a vocalist. Waits, Young and Dylan are songwriters and artists while Rod Stewart is just a singer and he's just bad at it. In fact, the Rod Stewart version of the Tom Waits composition, Downtown Train is a classic example of how one man managed to ruin another man's perfectly good song. Stewart's voice is the vocal equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, but I would rather eat chalk and run my own bicuspids across the board than be forced to listen to a low-rent Jagger impersonator caterwaul into my eardrums.

From grocery stores to Barnes and Noble and classic rock radio to a movie theater lobby you're likely to be trapped in a public space with Rod's sweaty throated rasp coming at you from the PA in the rafters. This is largely because The Rod has commercially evolved and transformed to accompany his core audience to their golden years. Not only have we been subjected to his years of schlocky rock records and faux-disco and power ballads, now The Rod has in recent years made a series of recordings of old standards. I have never really understood the gaga nature of Led Zeppelin fans, the band to me seems just simply overrated. Thusly, avoiding Led Zeppelin is fairly easy; stay away from frat parties; don't accept rides from males who drive muscle cars and appear to be between the ages of 16 and 27; if you attend a function and there is a turntable and a bottle of Jagermeister in the same room you may want to develop an exit strategy. Avoiding Rod Stewart is a completely different animal. Soccer moms at the mall might really like his 80's stuff while the local pharmacy might think "Gee, I bet the older female customers would love this version of Someone To Watch Over Me". And, the dive bar with a sketchy jukebox is going to scream Maggie Mae at you before the clock strikes ten! It's a scientific fact and you had better deal with it. Rod Stewart is everywhere and it's almost certainly because there is some demographic that will walk through the door and we want to make sure they feel at home.

Right now you're reading this and probably thinking "Wait, Faces are good. You can't argue with that right?" I admit that Faces are - and please view this through the proper prism of perspective - not as awful as the bulk of his other work. However, The Faces have a special place in my catalog of ire.

In 1969, Steve Marriott left the then Small Faces after a five year string of churning out terrific records in a mold of mod meets garage meets white boy soul. The Small Faces did many of the same things that the early Who records did while encapsulating the R&B action of early Beatles' records and a much better version of what bands like The Spencer Davis Group were trying to pull off. In short, they were very, very good and under-appreciated. When frontman and guitarist Marriott left due to the ever insidious "creative differences", his bandmates decided to soldier on without him. To replace him, they hired guitarist Ronnie Wood (later of Rolling Stones fame) and, you guessed it, Rod Stewart. The result was two men replacing one and being less than they had been before. To me, The Small Faces are one of the great unheralded bands and almost everyone will recognize the name Faces before they recognize The Small Faces. This recognition is almost certainly the effect of Stewart and Wood's star power. Wood is forgiven because of his participation on some very good Stones' records. Rod Stewart takes the fall here. It may not be fair, but gets much more credit than he deserves for jumping on the bandwagon of a great band that no one knows about because they're too busy listening to Rod Stewart.

Perhaps the single most mystifying thing about Stewart's popularity is his supposed sex appeal. Are you shitting me?!? This is a guy who, even in his prime looks like an emaciated version of some bizarre troll-like creature in a Tolkein novel. His spiky hair looks as though it were drawn on with an Aryan Magna Doodle and the alcoholic bulbous ball of a clown nose seems to be something even a caricature artist would think better than to include in a carnival drawing. His Cindy Crawford style mouth melanoma, his gawky mannerisms and that hitching white boy chicken neck thing he does when he dances are among the myriad physical manifestations that would get him laughed off stage at the local karaoke bar on a Friday night. But for the Rodster this is sex appeal. It must be those wily charms that landed him supermodel Rachel Hunter. If every chick dug hair like that you'd think Robert Smith would have a wider sex appeal than just the sphere of 17 year old girls on the verge of suicide.

So, Rod Stewart is hideously ugly and makes ladies think he's sexy and manages to convince them that they might even want his body. He cannot sing as well as Bob Dylan, but millions of people bought his record of standards. By the way, these sales probably happened primarily at Target stores and Starbucks locations. Stewart needed an accomplice to fill the shoes of Steve Marriott, but Faces got ten times the press and adoration. Maggie Mae is an awful song played way too many times and should only be listened to when the only other options involve songs by The Eagles or The Doors, yet you will hear it in the next seven days somewhere unless you live in Bangladesh. Rod Stewart may be terrible at all of these things, but his success makes he think he might just be a genius. If reincarnation is a real thing, I am pretty sure there is a direct link between P.T. Barnum and Rod Stewart.