The 6 Most Atrocious Uses of Facial Hair in Music History
We hope you won't take it as innuendo when we say that Cracked is hard on mustaches. Facial hair isn't just a personal choice; we all have to look at it. Especially if you're performing on stage every night.
Therefore, Adam Brown and Kristi Harrison feel it is their responsibility to deconstruct what has to be some of the most atrocious facial hair in the music industry.
John Oates Power 'Stache
Adam: OK, so right off the bat, I'd like to protest. I thought we were discussing atrocious facial hair? The only thing atrocious about John Oates's mustache is that all of my past efforts to grow one of equal force and dominance have fallen miserably short. This is the mustache by which all other mustaches must measure themselves. If there was a Mt. Rushmore for upper lip hair excellence, which there totally should be, all four faces would be John Oates and they'd all look exactly like his does in that picture.
Kristi: First of all, if you have a mustache covering your whole upper lip, I'm just going to assume you have mouth herpes. There are at least five or six blistery lesions all up in that caterpillar, festering and loving their warm little hair home. That look in his eyes only confirms it for me.
His private eyes are watching my every move. He looks like he's trying to crawl into my head through my eye sockets and read all my deepest thoughts and emotions, then use them against me to make me do his will. And I can't go for that. No can do.
Even more disconcerting, though, is that the look in Oates's eyes is almost obscured by his brow-mustaches. Browstaches. Boom. I just made that up.
Adam: Well done. As for that look, that's a look that makes things happen. Exciting things. Fun things. Sex things. That look is equal parts come hither seduction glance and warning to all other males in the room that the alpha has arrived. As if any of us would need a look to know that. By the time you see that mustache, it's already too late. Whatever lady you're talking to at the time immediately becomes property of the Oates. Unless you seal the deal and get the hell out of there in the delay that exists between the moment his mustache walks through the door and when the rest of him follows about 35 minutes later. It's sort of like waiting for a train to pass.
You know what that train is hauling? Machismo. Don't act like you don't want to ride that train, Harrison.
Kristi: By the way, I have NO IDEA what John Oates sounds like. So I'm just going to assume he talks like a Mario Brother and goes around saying things like, "I'ma John Oatesa. I'ma gonna rape-a you in the bottom now."
Bruce Springsteen's Soul Patch
Adam: OK, this is what I'm talking about. This? This is atrocious. This is a blight against the otherwise spotless Springsteen track record. This a chin vag on a man. And Bruce should know better. This is right up there with that time he decided to start monkeying around with synthesizers on the Born In the U.S.A. album. Except with pubes. On his face. Horrible decision.
Kristi: "I'm On Fire" was a good song and you'll never prove otherwise. What's tragic about this patch of soul is that it's marring someone who has otherwise aged astonishingly well.
This man is older than my father.
I'm thinking that this little tuft of awful is actually some kind of fuzzy fountain of youth, one that is powering Bruce's sculpted chest and shoulders and abs and back and legs and chest and abs and sculpted and all that I'm looking at in this picture right here. Like, maybe the hair follicles are drenched in some kind of baby collagen, and then they imbibe his chin nerves with babyness, which travels down to his firm body, but can't travel up. Because of gravity. Thus all the face crags. This theory is still a work in progress.
Adam: Seems plausible enough to me. But personally, I'd rather age like Mickey Rourke's face than resort to growing a goddamn soul patch to keep my youthful appearance.
And by the way, why is it that a soul patch just automatically makes a person seem a lot less trustworthy? There has never been a situation where seeing that little tuft of nasty on someone's chin has made me feel anything other than the need to pull a weapon of some sort. If Springsteen was here right now, I'd be all jittery like and have my hand on the gun I keep tucked in the waistband of my sweatpants at all times. I should really get a holster for that thing.
Scott Ian's Red Goatee
Adam: There is nothing about this facial hair fiasco that doesn't make me want to violently yank this dude to the ground. This must be the feeling a linebacker gets when he's chasing a running back with long stupid dreadlocks sticking out the back of his helmet. How could you resist? I don't think I could. I'm going to make a prediction right now: If I ever meet Scott Ian, I'm going to tackle him to the ground by the facial hair. And I concede that after pulling off this takedown I'd most assuredly be beaten within an inch of my life by angry roadies, but it would be worth it, though. So worth it. You know why?
Kristi: Because you like to wrestle boys?
Adam: Who doesn't? But also because this guy is a show off, that's why. And he can get away with it, because he's in a metal band. He's all "look at what I can do because I don't have a real job." This guy hates the little man, and he's mocking us with his shitty red goatee.
Kristi: I feel like he has a clown growing upside-down out of his face. The It clown. And I hate that clown. Like maybe he's going to open his mouth and bare 6,000 sharp little teeth that are going to claw out my soul and eat it. If I kept a dream diary it would be full of pictures of this clowngoat man gobbling my innards with his dagger teeth and then smirking about it. Like he's so cool. He's not so cool. He's a clowngoat.
Adam: Why would you post that picture? There could be kids reading.
Shavo Odadjian's um...Chin Whip?
Kristi: I used to wear my hair like that when I was in eighth grade. But in the back. It was tight. Like, literally, tight. My hair was pulled so tight that I looked like a freckle-faced Asian. Can I make that joke? I don't know what's racist anymore so feel free to cut it.
Adam: If I cut all your racist jokes we'd have no article left. But we're getting off track here. What's really important is that I have no idea what this guy has sprouting from his chin. It looks like it should be detachable so he can use it to fight off would be attackers or discipline unruly children.
Kristi: If I had that face lash, I'd use it to stir my grits and cheese every morning at breakfast. It's a pretty sensible hairstyle, when you think about it. What other hairstyle on this list can be used as a jump rope for highly trained rats? Riddle me that.
Adam: Wait, are we assuming it's detachable? How would you reattach it? It's like a stinger! I wonder if he'd die if you removed it? That would rule.
#2. Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Kristi: What happened to this man's face? It's like Wilford Brimley and all the 70s Beach Boys set up a commune on the lower part of his head. I can't decide if I want to eat some oatmeal or take to my bed, inhale some fried chicken and acid, and generally let myself deteriorate to the point where a controversial psychologist is enlisted to take over my entire life and make me skinny again.
I'm enthralled!
Adam: FINALLY! Someone on this list who can wear facial hair without looking weird about it. Christ almighty it looks like Rocky Dennis got a seal pregnant and that seal gave birth to this guy but didn't really pay him the attention that a mother seal should and now he's all resentful and shit and spends his days holed up in a cabin in the woods writing manifestos about the evils of technology when he's not recording ambient acoustic albums. And is he smiling?
Kristi: Oh, he's smiling. He's smiling right at me.
Adam: I can't tell, but he better not be. No way should a dude rocking a beard like that get to be happier than me. And I'm not smiling. So he damn well better not be either. Not that I would have any way of knowing.
Kristi: I just had to Google Rocky Dennis just now. You're a terrible person in every way.
George Michael's Manscaped Goatee/Soul Patch Ensemble
Adam: Ladies, you know how you always say, "I don't want a man who spends more time in front of the mirror than I do?" Well, meet that man. He's George Michael, and he doesn't want you either.
Kristi: At least you know he cares, unlike Grizzly Adams up there. I wonder if he uses a stencil to get his lines so straight? Speaking of straight, it's crazy to think of now, but for years I was under the impression that George Michael was good looking. And straight. I was pretty sure he was straight, too.
Adam: And you're under the impression that he's not good looking now?
Kristi: Yes.
Adam: I agree he's not good looking. He's GREAT looking. Holy shit. I mean, I'm not saying I'd switch sides or anything. But in prison, maybe? All bets are off in prison. Just like when you're out of town or drunk or sure you won't get caught. There are no rules in any of those situations. Other than the rule that dictates that if you're going to wear a pink shirt and soft yellow fingerless gloves that you must be sure to properly manscape your eyebrows. I've no idea why he would choose to skirt that rule, but he is in that second picture there. But that's a discussion for another day.
Kristi: I think that you just spelled out George Michael's philosophy on sex, actually. Especially the part about bets being off when you're in public parks.
Adam: Did I say all bets were off in public parks? I don't think I did. But I totally meant to, so proceed.
Kristi: You were thinking it. His face reminds me of a Wooly Willy.
Kristi: Like, when you're too lazy to fill in all the skin, so you just make sad little magnet lines around his mouth, just to say that you tried. So, pretty much every time I did a Wooly Willy, it turned out like George Michael's ugly mug. I was a apathetic child.
Adam: Why did those things always have red noses? Were we supposed to be concocting some sort of clown with that toy? What kind of child molesting Eastern European nightmare clown has bushy black facial hair and no makeup? If that Wooly Willy had hands it would have a pack of M&M's in one and a huge rubber fist in the other. Or a bottle of sacrament wine maybe. And its cardboard packaging would be in the shape of a van. Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to play with Wooly Willy toys. You're just softening them up for potential predators.
Kristi: Those are the eagerest cartoon eyes I've seen this side of a Tex Avery cartoon. Here's a fun game: Imagine those exact eyes are behind these sunglasses:
Enjoy your sales boom, nightlight manufacturers!
Be sure to check out Adam and Kristi's take on the most iconic bras in rock history. Or learn about some general naughty behavior in the music world, in The 7 Most Impossible Rock Stars to Deal With.
