Robert Smith
Beginning with the Cure’s first B-side, “10.15 Saturday Night,” which finds its narrator sitting home crying, waiting for a girl to call, Smith has made a fetish out of romantic disappointment and pioneered a vocal style in which he sounds on the verge of breaking into heaving sobs at any moment. His tent-like black sweaters, smeared lipstick and messy bird’s nest of dark hair have become the uniform of choice for generations of histrionic white kids convinced the world doesn’t understand their pain.
Wussiest Moment: “The Lovecats,” the Cure’s fluffball 1983 hit, which features Smith literally meowing over a tune best suited for preschoolers.
24 Cutesy Celt
Donovan
If a unicorn could sing songs, it would sound like Donovan. His curly mop, Scottish accent and fanciful songs, inevitably full of cutesy rhymes and childish doggerel, so enraptured stoned hippies that in 1967 he compared his power to that of Hitler. The moony, mystical minstrel routinely performed in a white robe surrounded by flowers and incense, and even declared he’d “come to lead” a change in America, one that would initiate “the beginning of a soft, quiet time.” Yes, cloying ditties like “Mellow Yellow,” “Jennifer Juniper” and “Clara Clairvoyant” were certainly quiet. But quietly annoying.
Wussiest moment: Sang backing vocals on the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” proving that wussiness is contagious.
23 80% Wussy
Everyone in ’N Sync (Except Justin Timberlake)
Just as surrounding yourself with fat people makes you look thin, J-Tim’s cool-guy status reflects how uncool his boy-bandmates were. Lance Bass achieves cosmonaut accreditation but can’t find anyone to launch him into space; Joey Fatone sings show tunes; Chris Kirkpatrick fronts a presumably Spinal Tap–inspired “rock” outfit called Nigels 11; and JC Chasez records “I’m Not Sleeping Alone,” in which he doth protest too much.
Wussiest moment: In “Without Me,” Eminem says Kirkpatrick should get his ass kicked “worse than them little limpbizkit bastards.” No one argues. 22 Sniffy Schoolmarm
Natalie Merchant
There’s nothing wrong with dogooders; after all, they, uh, do good. So we don’t dislike the former 10,000 Maniacs singer for playing lots of benefits, or for posting gardening links and haikus on her website. But Merchant is like that goody-goody in the ninth grade who always reminded the teacher if she forgot to assign homework. It’s wrong for a parent to hit a child, but the main point of her song on that topic, “What’s the Matter Here?,” seems to be the illustration of Merchant’s own moral superiority to an angry parent. Plus, she declaims her own decorous folk-rock songs as if she’s reading Shakespeare on the stage of the goddamn Globe Theater.
Wussiest moment: Did we mention the haikus on her website?
21 The Father of Wuss
Pat Boone
In 1955, Fats Domino, a black piano wizard from New Orleans, cut “Ain’t That a Shame,” a bouncy R&B number he’d written. Pat Boone, a clean-cut preppie crooner, re-recorded it, only without the soul, and released it the same year, selling far more copies. Thus was born a career in Caucasian dilution: Just as rock was turning dirty, Boone whitewashed raucous songs by Little Richard and others, selling sterile versions of black music and blooming into the decade’s second-biggest pop singer, behind Elvis Presley. In his later years, Boone became an apologist for President Bush’s war in Iraq.
Wussiest moment: Fathered Debby Boone, whose appalling 1977 smash, “You Light Up My Life,” is the worst song in the history of the world.
20 Crybaby Cowboy
Garth Brooks
Where earlier generations of country stars loved Cadillacs and whiskey, Brooks adored James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg, and even cried onstage while performing his sentimental ballads. He ushered in a generation of neutered country dudes, and sold more records than anyone but the Beatles, by embodying a cultural turn towards I-need-some-Kleenex confessions.
Wussiest moment: In a Barbara Walters TV interview, she asked about his children, and his eyes filled with tears.
19 Soft, White And Plain
Bread
As the Me Decade dawned, Bread helpfully unsaddled the 1960s’ groovy free-love ideals from any downer political agenda that could potentially ruin the mood. In doing so, mellow, mushy tunes like “Make It With You” and “Baby I’m-a Want You” created the oxymoronically named “soft rock” template from which a thousand Starland Vocal Bands would soon bloom.
Wussiest moment: In a catalogue filled with drippy odes to being hopelessly whipped, “It Don’t Matter to Me” deserves special mention for blithely accepting a lover banging other guys.
18 Hip-hop Hippie
Common
Being a sensitive backpacker MC is one thing. But when you’re a teetotaling, incense-burning, crocheted-scarf-wearing vegetarian whose real name is Lonnie Lynn … well, let’s just say street cred isn’t an issue. Call him the hip-hop Stuart Smalley: “I just wanna be happy with being me,” Kanye’s boho homey once rapped. Awww …
Wussiest moment: Shortened his name from Common Sense in 1995 after being sued by a ska band with the same name. A ska band.
17 Enter Sadman
Metallica
The haircuts were lame and the anti-Napster crusade lamer, but neither prepared fans for the soppy bitchfest that was Some Kind of Monster: The once-throttling metalheads dropped $40K a month on a touchy-feely life coach in a Cosby sweater who played master to Metallica’s puppets. Lars and James bicker and weep throughout, but neither has the decency to just go ahead and slug the other.
Wussiest moment: Lars’s ego is crushed by his gnomish father who, upon hearing a new song, sagely advises, “I would delete that.”
16 Lily-Liverpool
Paul McCartney
After the Beatles imploded, George went Eastern mystic, John became an art-damaged revolutionary, Ringo moved to L.A. and hoovered half of Columbia with Keith Moon, and Paul … wrote “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “Silly Love Songs” while insisting crew members go vegan. Only rock star ever to win Order of Merit of Chile for “services to music, peace and human understanding.”
Wussiest moment: After decades as a dedicated pot smoker, Macca quits in 2002 at the insistence of high-on-life new bride Heather Mills. His kowtowing is rewarded four years later with a potentially half-billion-dollar divorce suit.
15 Ride, Ride Like the Wimp
Christopher Cross
After selling more than four million copies of his 1979 self-titled debut, crafting the first-ballot Wussy Hall of Fame ballad “Sailing” and sweeping the Grammys in every major category, this doughy, falsetto-voiced Texan guarantees sophomore slumpage by appearing on the back cover of his 1983 follow-up wearing a pink suit. Two decades later, Seth MacFarlane names pudgy, hopelessly awkward son on Family Guy Christopher Cross Griffin.
Wussiest moment: “Think of Laura” becomes the unofficial love theme to General Hospital in 1983.
Hahahaha. Perfect.
I love The Cure. Somehow I don't think Robert Smith takes himself all that seriously, but I could be wrong. The video for "Why Can't I Be You?" is a classic, and that is a great song.