Marc Bolan dressed to the left.
Sometime in the 1970s, an intrepid BBC reporter posited the question What is it about today’s pop stars that appealed so much to young girls and boys? After talking to a small selection of very emotional and breathy fans, he soon discovered the answer was music. This didn’t quite satisfy our keen reporter who seemed to be hoping for an answer more akin to that given by Mrs. Iris Mountbatten’s when she revealed her son “Leggy” had first appreciated the large talents of the Rutles after seeing their tight trousers.
It’s well known that tight trousers have a long history in rock and pop music stretching all the way back and front to the 1950s when Elvis Presley first unleashed his “Hound Dog” on national television. Within weeks, it seemed as if every singer was wearing a pair of strides one size too small leaving many broadcasters to shoot these performers from the waist up so as not to offend the less fashionable viewers at home. But with the arrival of four well-endowed young men from Liverpool, trousers which revealed everything and left nothing to the imagination quickly became the focal point of the sixties’ “British Invasion” and the inspiration for many bands over the following decade.
For some, what God had provided wasn’t enough and their trousers were often padded with socks, lead pipes, cucumbers, shuttlecocks, “armadillos,” and the massed pipe bands of a well-known Highland regiment. However, having spent minutes if not hours poring over rock stars crotches I have got to the nuts and bolts of this subject and cobbled together a small (or should that be large?) selection of classic rock stars and their unfeasibly large talents…
Mick Jagger packed his own lunch.
Robert Plant’s noticeable onstage ‘presence.’
George Harrison was always a bit of a dark horse.
Freddie Mercury failing to hide his light under a bush or is it a tree?
Ron Wood, literally.
Big Jimi Hendrix.
David Bowie was no laughing gnome.
John Lennon left little to imagine.
Rod Stewart wearing the original ‘budgie smugglers.’
Otis Redding
Lizard King Jim Morrison.
This pair were always more than a handful—Pete Townshend and Keith Moon.
Eric Clapton—more ‘big’ than ‘slow’ hand.
David Lee Roth and the joy of spandex.
Iggy about to pop out.
The never shy Brian Jones.
Zoot Allures!: Frank Zappa (colorization by Lauren).
Via Vintage Everyday, Flashbak, Northern Soul Train, and Reddit.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Pop stars and their packages
McCartney, Bowie, Lemmy, Debbie Harry appear in ‘Rock Stars in Their Underpants’
There are leggings and shorts with a full frontal of Michelangelo’s ‘David’
Naked: Iggy Pop’s eye-popping performance in see-through pants leaves little to the imagination