Music's 25 Most Dastardly Villains
25. FEELIN' ON YOUR UNDERAGE BOOTYR. Kelly
Jerry Lee Lewis with a camcorder
Rap Sheet: Personal-flight-ability-believin' soul singer Kelly married singer/actress Aaliyah in 1994, when she was 15 (the marriage was soon annulled), and reportedly has a reputation for liking 'em young. In February of 2002, the Chicago Sun-Times received a videotape of a man who looks like Kelly screwing and urinating on an allegedly 14-year-old girl. Three more lawsuits have been filed against the singer accusing him of having sex with underage girls; in June 2002, a grand jury indicted the R&B star on 21 counts of child pornography. His response? The song "Heaven I Need a Hug." In 2008, Blender.com followed the trial, noting that "a heavy rain had flooded the Prohibition-era courthouse’s pipes," resulting in hours of jury selection conducted amidst the overpowering stench of — you guessed it — urine. Relief came in the form of a sheriff’s deputy, who produced a can of Lysol.
The Defense: Indicted doesn't mean convicted, and Kelly maintains his innocence, saying of the videotape: "I have no interest in seeing anything that I know I haven't done."
Quote: "The world's greatest? Whatever/Ain't nothing but a child molester."—Sisqo, "This Is Heart"
24. THEIR INVENTION KILLS OUR STARS
The Wright Brothers
Aeronautical pioneers
Rap Sheet: Fascinated by the possibilities of air travel after their father bought them a toy helicopter, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully tested the world's first real plane, Flyer 1, on December 17, 1903. The brothers' invention would ultimately deprive music of an astounding array of talent, including the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, guitarist Randy Rhoads, assorted members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pasty Cline, Jim Croce, John Denver, Rick Nelson, and Aaliyah, all of whom died in plane crashes.
The Defense: Orville, who outlived his brother by 36 years, continued to invent throughout his life, working on a variety of safer projects, including a toaster, children's toys, and an automatic record changer.
Quote: "I couldn't imagine our plane coming apart like it did."—Gene Odom, Lynyrd Skynyrd security manager and crash survivor
23. DIRT DIGGER, ROCK HATER
Albert Goldman
Rep-destroying music biographer
Rap Sheet: Elvis Presley had been dead for four years when reporter Albert Goldman produced a blasphemous 1981 biography, Elvis, saying that in decline he looked like "a big fat woman recovering from some operation on her reproductive organs."
Then in 1988, Goldman's The Lives of John Lennon enraged Beatles fans with a relentless cascade of tawdry scenes: Yoko Ono snorting heroin, Lennon soliciting boys in Bangkok brothels.
The Defense: Goldman, who died in 1994, didn't much like Lives either; he complained that his editors cut 81,000 words of his more balanced manuscript.
Quote: "I'm not aware that there were 81,000 words of positive material removed from the book at the editing stage. That's like saying that [Lennon's killer Mark David] Chapman had some very positive things to say about John which were not reported."—Yoko Ono
22. JUDGE YE NOTSimon Cowell
American Idol's Mr. Nasty
Rap Sheet: By far the most obnoxious judge on Fox's American Idol talent show, Cowell, a British music executive, routinely dismisses singing hopefuls with such critiques as "pathetic," "rubbish," "fat" and "that sounded like a train going off the rails." He told one contestant, "You will never, ever, ever have a career in singing."
The Defense: He loves dogs. "You'll never find anything on Earth more loyal than a dog," he says.
Quote: "He has this thing about the sexual tension between us. But the only sexual tension is the fact that his pants are so tight."—Fellow American Idol judge Paula Abdul, who promises a "tell-all biography" when the show finally (some say mercifully) ends.
21. TURN IT DOWN
Muzak
Purveyors of crap covers
Rap Sheet: The brainchild of World War I veteran General George Owen Squire, the Muzak company has been guilty of sucking the lifeblood from countless melodies since its founding in 1922. It once even considered adopting the slogan "boring work is made less boring by boring music."
Muzak's existence so irked Ted Nugent that in 1989 the guitarist offered to buy the company for $10 million just so he could destroy its tapes. Muzak's output is especially lamentable to the partially deaf, who pick up the "mood music" at high volume, causing them "pain, discomfort and unnecessary distress," according to Britain's Royal Institute for Deaf People.
The Defense: Muzak just might have helped avert nuclear war: During the '60s, the U.S. experimented with playing its mind-numbingly relaxing sounds on Polaris submarines to help ease sailors' frazzled nerves.
Quote: "I like anything on Muzak — it's so listenable," Andy Warhol once said. "They should have it on MTV."
