Guns N' Roses

Look at that stance. The energy. There's instantly no question. It's IT.


Three or four times a generation, someone comes along who just IS a rock star.

And the rest of the singers mimic them like they were top twenties on American Idol.

But you can't take it away from them. It doesn't matter how fucked up they are, how unhappy, how incoherent or washed up...a rock star always has IT. And nobody else ever will. And that's why they blow the poseurs away. They're channeling Norse gods onstage, and no one else can touch them. Their ability to feel and transmute is electrifying. The work of shamans.

Hendrix, Morrison, Elvis, Lennon, Cash, Prince, Bono, Hutchence, Kobain, Axl. Tina Turner. Rock stars.

You see it in a few male actors, too. It's very telling that my first thought looking at Axl's photo was "Is that Mickey Rourke?" Because it could have been Phoenix, Kilmer, Crowe, Brando, Dean. The ones you can't take your eyes off of.