Gotta admit that female entertainers nowadays got more balls than most of these guys:

In today's pop music world, nice guys like Bruno Mars and Justin Timberlake rule

Don't look for outlaws or rebels among artists like Pharrell, Adam Levine, John Legend, Blake Shelton or Luke Bryan

There’s no place for bad boys in today’s pop. Nice guys are finishing first. And second. And even third.

Nearly every top male singer these days is a glad-handing people-pleaser, a guy you could take home to Mom without worrying about him harboring a trace of temper or mystery.

We’re talking about pop’s entire male front line — Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, Adam Levine, John Legend and more. They all rank as pure entertainers, the kind of twinkle-eyed, fairy-tale beaus who tell audiences exactly what they want to hear.

On Monday, yet another nice guy stands poised to clog the pop charts. Ed Sheeran, a sweet and brotherly everyman, will release the album “x,” predicted to top sales lists and move more than 1 million copies. Sheeran, 23, already has one of the summer’s most beamy hits — the Justin Timberlake sound-alike tune “Sing.”

Pop’s boy-next-door trend also extends to the world of country music. It’s hard to imagine a discouraging word, rude comment or brooding chill emanating from the likes of Luke Bryan, Phillip Phillips, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Hunter Hayes or Blake Shelton.

You don’t hear too many discouraging words from Justin Timberlake.

They’re all so squeaky-clean, they make Donny Osmond look downright degenerate. They’re a far cry from the classic outlaws of country legend like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings or even Willie Nelson.

LIkewise, today’s top rockers have none of the bad boy darkness of stars of the ’90s, from grune gods Nirvana to industrial depressives Nine Inch Nails.

What passes for the top-selling rock band of today — Coldplay, fronted by the deeply pale Chris Martin — essentially makes wimpified ballads, tarted up with amplification and looming lighting trusses.

While pockets of rebellion may thrive in the cultier regions of rap, that genre’s most massive sellers have either cleaned up their act or become domesticated. Witness the prevailing images of Jay Z or Dr. Dre as world moguls, or the recent arc of Kanye West. The man known, and perversely loved, for his manic threats and cray-cray outbursts, has turned into a doting husband and dad, married to a reality show staple.

Pharrell Williams is quite “Happy” to be a friendly presence in the pop world.

The only other massive male rapper blessed with a naturally devilish character — Eminem — now roots that role in the past. The very title of the now 41-year-old emcee’s most recent album, “The Marshall Mathers LP 2,” ties him to an antique history of anger, dating back 13 years to the first “Marshall Mathers” album.

Even a rapper you’d think would be preserved for bad boy eternity by virtue of being dead — Tupac — isn’t entirely safe. His complex legacy has been streamlined for the ’burbs by a just-opened, multimillion-dollar Broadway musical based on his lyrics, “Holler If Ya Hear Me.”

All my carps about this trend may lead some to ask, “What’s so wrong with banishing bad boys Don’t we like the eye-batting innocence of the Justin/Bruno/Pharrell cabal?”

Indeed we do. But their current domination of the pop scene robs music of a snarling yin to its sweet yang — a Rolling Stones to balance out its Beatles. The loss also takes away some of music’s sexual frisson. More seriously, it kills off parts of its soul.

Ed Sheeran is another pop “nice guy”; his new album “X” is coming out.

As likable as today’s back-slapping pop stars may be, they can’t get at the nuance and confusion bad guys naturally tap. They lack the brooding depth of the inner life, the bridge that leads us from entertainment to art.

Ironically, today’s pop women have a bit more edge and cool. Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea both have more in-your-face appeal than the current top males. Rihanna has some hauty attitude, Lorde has a trace of darkness and Lana Del Rey doesn’t miss a bad-girl cliché.

That’s apt payback for eons of male dominance. But must the price of women gaining power be men turning benign?

I think it's a fair point of view

I guess Chris Brown will have to bake & gift a lot of apple pies in order to make the list next year....

Honestly never looked at it this way but it makes perfect sense. To put it in pro wrestling terms, all the top guys are squeaky clean babyfaces with no anti-heroes or heels to play off of. Helps to explain one overlooked reason as to why music is so stale; there's no balance of different personalities/ alignments and as a result, the top male stars are collectively boring character-wise since they're basically all the same despite their respective styles and genres.

Didn't "pop star" singers always pretty much have clean images? That's what you see in magazines like Bop & Tiger Beat. Tiger Beat sold the idea of dreamy pop singers & actors. A bad boy act would not want to be in such a magazine, you didn't see Ozzy Osbourne, Steve Earle, or Motley Crue in it. They didn't have Sean Penn. It was the hard rock & metal acts that had had the "bad boy" or rebel images. With country, singers like Waylon Jennings & Johnny Paycheck were called "outlaw country" which was an alternative of the usual country acts who were more showbizzy like and wore Nudie suits, or the crossover Kenny Rogers/Ronnie Milsap/Garth Brooks types. The "outlaw country" acts were usually not as popular on the radio. Southern rock acts were closer to the outlaw country image.

Yeah it's true there are no villains really pushing the envelope for awfulness anymore. I guess at the far end you have those people who are in bands who also kill people, like the guy in As I Lay Dying or the Swedish & Norwegian black metal bands, or the ones who are real-life predators and pedophiles, but that's not the kind of "bad" bahavior that turns most people on. You have a lot of guys representing for weed but that's not even illegal in parts of the country now.

Aside from his approval of drug use, would Trent Reznor even register as "edgy" today? Even that once-shocking video for "Closer" has nothing you wouldn't find in 50 Shades Of Gray.

But you still have Miley Cyrus pumping for molly, so, that'll have to do.

Even Odd Future, who seem like genuine rabble rousers who don't give a crap, seem kinda tired with their antagonizing-security shtick. People get hurt in those stampedes. It doesn't look rowdy or revolutionary so much as goofy and thoughtless.

Bruno had a horrible song about gorilla sex. Which is one of the stupidest sex songs i've ever heard in my entire life (And if you actually KNOW and watch how gorillas have sex. You'll see it's actually quite broing and quick. Perhaps Bruno is a one minute man?) and he has other badly written songs about sex. Plus he got arrested for drugs... i don't think his image is THAT squeaky with all that

Justin is known for showing up to charities and not giving a fuck. And pretty much just being there but to look nice. He also has songs about sex and seduction. I'm not saying having those songs is a bad thing per say. But when i think ''play it safe''

I Think of someone like Lionel Richie... who did 1,000 different love songs. And barely made any refences to sex or even love making. There was that whole cheating and got his ass beaten thing though...

Bruno played a guitar solo live between the legs of a pol dancer



I think he probably didnt play it safe here, but apart from this, his music is completely safe.

I'm looking for a third album that contains more edgy & risky songs.

Ed Sheeran is like the cleanest dude out, even if he'd go risky one day, it'll still look clean

Shawy89 said:

Bruno played a guitar solo live between the legs of a pol dancer



I think he probably didnt play it safe here, but apart from this, his music is completely safe.

I'm looking for a third album that contains more edgy & risky songs.

Ed Sheeran is like the cleanest dude out, even if he'd go risky one day, it'll still look clean

Ed has got a VERY clean image. But give it a few years... he wrote stuff for One Directon. Once those guys start getting caught with drugs, going ''mature'' byt being more sexual, and one gets arrested. Ed will probably show his edgy side once that happens.

Bruno Mars and Timberlake are hollywood kids. They've been smiling big and breaking legs for decades now since they were old enough for their parents to collect checks off of them.

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One of the reasons "male pop stars" with edge have sort of faded is that BANDS are no longer a requirement. Prince, Bon Jovi, The Beatles, Nirvana, The Jackson Five... these were all townie products that came up in their respective localities. The figureheads we have forced upon us have no backstory, no struggle, no history. They were groomed for this. Made by and for Hollywood.

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Also - where is the source from this? Or is this just a fun org post disguised as journalism?

[Edited 6/23/14 14:40pm]

jeidee said:

Bruno Mars and Timberlake are hollywood kids. They've been smiling big and breaking legs for decades now since they were old enough for their parents to collect checks off of them.

.

One of the reasons "male pop stars" with edge have sort of faded is that BANDS are no longer a requirement. Prince, Bon Jovi, The Beatles, Nirvana, The Jackson Five... these were all townie products that came up in their respective localities. The figureheads we have forced upon us have no backstory, no struggle, no history. They were groomed for this. Made by and for Hollywood.

.

Also - where is the source from this? Or is this just a fun org post disguised as journalism?

[Edited 6/23/14 14:40pm]

Its from The New York Daily News:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/today-pop-world-nice-guys-rule-article-1.1831990