Gary Flockhart: Liam is the pretender to throne

By GARY FLOCKHJART
Published on 15/03/2012 15:09

ANOTHER day, another list.

Earlier this week, I came across the results of XFM’s poll to find the greatest frontman of all time. As a hater of such lists, I decided to navigate away because I knew it would annoy me.

Epic fail. Try as I might I just couldn’t stop myself from having a peak and, lo and behold, it annoyed me.

Liam Gallagher? Greatest frontman ever? Yes, according to the poll.

Not that Liam was surprised. When told about the accolade, the ever-humble Mancunian replied, “I knew that anyway. There’s not many of us about. There are a lot of pretenders out there.”

Asked what’s the secret to being a great frontman, the Beady Eye singer said, “It’s always been about the vocal for me, man,” adding, “If you’re a good looking f***** like me, you’ve got to be down the front, haven’t you?”

Among those “pretenders” were Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop and the late, great Freddie Mercury – all better frontmen in my opinion.

Each to their own, though. Such polls are designed to provoke reaction – and this one certainly will.

Not that we should be too hung up on it. After all, XFM appeals to a certain audience – largely under-30 indie fans – so while Liam may be the living, breathing embodiment of the mad-for-it rock‘n’roll star among the station’s listeners, for millions of others he’s not all that.

I’m not knocking Liam as a frontman – he’s good – but the age of the voters clearly had a big influence on the result.

How else would you explain the absence of Roger Daltrey, Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Smith and too many other greats to mention?