The Olympics and Why Singers Have to Be Beautiful

The Olympics are in high gear now.

I think the fascination with the Olympics is the idea that these people from all over the world may, in fact, be the fastest or strongest or most skilled humans on the entire planet.

(Carl Lewis's tag line was "Fastest Man Alive.") And since many of them break records - they may be the fastest, strongest, or most skilled humans who have ever lived.

That's daunting to think about and is the reason why singers have to be beautiful.

(well... who else was I going to pick for the pretty singers picture?? :) ) Why can't a singer just have a pretty voice?

Unlike the 100 meter race, a voice is hard to quantify.  While there are many aspects which might delineate an untrained voice from a well trained voice.  Once you're in the realm of "good voice," aesthetics and context begin to play a major factor.

Yet - we as humans still seem to really want to get behind the best humans on the planet and honor them.

So - we look for additional cues that this singer is worth our adoration.  One of the easiest to spot is beauty.  If they can sing, and they're beautiful - then they are even more rare.  If they can act or dance - even better.  If they can do all these things, then they are simply confirming that they are the super being we want them to be.  Record companies will often pair talented song writers with artists even though the singer gets all the credit because it's even better if the public thinks they can write their own music too. 

Beauty, however, comes in many dimensions and the face is just the most obvious.  A great magazine face on a singer is gold for a distributor/marketer - but there are definitely singers who would not be considered classically beautiful.  So, how did they circumvent this in the music video era? 

That's charisma.  And the glorious thing about charisma is that charisma lasts a lot longer than beauty alone.

Charisma is when they find a different path to share their beauty or uniqueness.  In fact, some of these singers can barely sing and still attract a following.  What they do is present and impression that is appealing.  They may not be magazine beautiful and their voices may not really be in the "good " category - but they have created something else entirely - a phenomenon that people want to be a part of.  And the creation of that phenomenon makes them worthy of enough adoration to make to idol status.

(sorry to use such an extreme case, but the less obvious options risked derailing the point.) But for all artists who are hoping to capture the attention of a large audience - it's important to stay aware that Olympic mentality that the public has.  To earn their adoration, you have to really prove yourself to be truly unique among humans.  This is the difference between an artist who does excellent work consistently and a pop star (whether it's an actor, a singer, even a painter).   The advantage of being a pop star is in more options for your career - you get to be in the driver's seat more of where you want to take your career.  You get to build a relationship with your audience.  The disadvantage... it could be distracting from your primary focus.

Whether you pursue it or not, the mentality exists though and it can't hurt to be aware of it.