Rant & Roll by Cory Blackwood

People go to a concert, see a band, and automatically assume that the band members are larger than life. Seems easy enough; they're up on a stage, possibly being projected on a giant screen and everyone assumes that these rock stars are simply huge.

No one questions this "fact" but then people are shocked after the concert to see (place rock star name of choice here) strolling to their bus--all 5 feet 4 inches of him. Statistically, this is not uncommon. Lead singers in bands tend to be shorter than the average bear (or person).

Weird, huh? It is true, just go through some lead singers you know of. Kurt Cobain was tiny, so is Axl Rose, along with Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Vedder and Billy Idol. All of these people are well below average height for men.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio has a hallway full of life-sized mannequins dressed up like their real-life counterparts. The designer of these mannequins (whose name I have forgotten) complained of the difficulties of designing so many short mannequins, and said that lead singers were, on average, about 5'6" to 5'9." The average male stands at 5'10" to 6'0".

Why are so many singers short? The jury is still out, but I don't think that shorter people have better vocal chords. I admit, I am 6'3" and am as tone-deaf as they come, but there is no correlation there.

Maybe it has something to do with the ever-common Napoleon complex. Before short people everywhere hunt me down, let me explain. People who are below average height have a tendency to feel like they aren't getting the attention they deserve. This commonly takes the shape of a bully, at least in one's high school years. Napoleon, for example, beat up on the better part of a continent, but many people settle for being idolized by millions.

As there always are, there are a few exceptions to this rule of thumb. Marilyn Manson is 6'3", making him look freakishly tall standing next to other singers, or just freakish. Pulp's Jarvis Cocker also stands a head above the crowd at 6'2".

In nearly any other profession, there is a very wide range of heights and sizes, save for basketball and tunneling. This never ceases to surprise me, being tall. Every time I meet or see some lead singer up close, I manage to tower over them. Most of my friends are right about the same height as me, so I never feel very tall. Last week I was backstage at the American Theatre, and there wasn't a single person out of 20 or more that was six feet tall.

I guess people just expect someone with as much bravado as Johnny Rotten to be as big as their ego. I always seemed to expect the larger than life stereotype, possibly because the first two rock stars I met were Marilyn Manson and Cypress Hill's B-Real. After that, meeting Beck, a giant standing nearly 5'8" just wasn't as impressive anymore.

So maybe I didn't try to fight stereotypes in movies, mourn the passing of a St. Louis landmark, and maybe I wasn't the last bastion of the free press the week, but I bet you didn't know that most lead singers were shorter than average!