KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons has slammed Rolling Stone magazine for placing Ozzy Osbourne at No. 112 on its list of the 200 greatest singers of all time
Gene gave his two-cents on the list after being asked about it by TMZ. When it was noted to Simmons that KISS was excluded from the list, Gene replied (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Well, that’s okay. I was thinking of buying Rolling Stone.”
Simmons added: “Well, it’s skewed. You have to consider who’s popular and who’s not. But if you really think about it, how good somebody sings may be part and parcel of what they do. For instance, if Jimi Hendrix, who had a long — well, actually a short career, but he was very famous, would he make it on ‘American Idol‘? How about Bob Dylan… And I wrote songs with Bob Dylan; I know the guy. Would he make it on ‘American Idol‘?
Gene continued: “How well you sing is not the most important thing. It’s, do you have style? Do you have a fingerprint that says, ‘I know that voice immediately’?”
When it was mentioned that Ozzy Osbourne made the list at No. 112, Gene said: “That’s a crime. Look, somebody sits in a backroom — Jann Wenner [Rolling Stone co-founder] and those guys — they sit in a backroom and they decide things. Nobody asked me. Did they ask you? Apparently not.”
When Simmons was asked where he would have been on the list if it had been done properly, Gene simply replied: “Oh, I don’t give a fuck. Really.”
The KISS bassist was then asked if artists should care about the actual list, Gene replied: “No, they shouldn’t. If you’ve got success, that’s enough. Accolades and all that, you get that when you do a concert or when fans come up. That’s the best thing. To be on a poll by a magazine by people in the backroom, I don’t know how much that means.”
Rolling Stone‘s list of 200 Greatest Singers was compiled by the magazine’s staff members and contributors.