Off the Charts: Clay Aiken

As wholesome as he wanna be

By Newt Briggs

Anyone who thinks the dignity was stripped from pop music with the momentary flash of a 40-year-old chocolate-brown aureole at the Super Bowl has yet to be exposed to the overwhelming good will of last season's "American Idol" runner-up, Clay Aiken. A churchgoing mama's boy with a background in special education, a lifetime membership in the YMCA and a borderline-Puritanical flair for modesty, the 25-year-old Aiken is so square he has sharp corners. He's also strangely asexual, which has prompted some to speculate that the gentleman may indeed prefer dudes. Whatever Aiken's sexual preference, his debut album--the Peter Cetera-influenced Measure of a Man--did little to clarify the issue. What it did clarify is that Aiken is a bona fide pop sensation, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 after selling more than 600,000 records during his opening week.

CLAY TRIPPERS: For all his geeky androgyny, Aiken has amassed a remarkable female following. The most rabid of these fans, a group that calls itself the Claymates, actually convened March 5 and 6 to participate in Clayvention 2004. The two-day event was staged in Raleigh, N.C., (Aiken's hometown) and was attended by more than 400 fans from 33 states and Canada. The highlights of this year's Clayvention included "Clay Jeopardy," an "Idol"-inspired talent competition and an appearance by Aiken's mother, Faye Parker, who passed on a "special message from Clay."

CLAY PRIDE: When Aiken graced the cover of Rolling Stone in July, he became the first musician to appear on the cover with a "What would Jesus do?" bracelet. To prepare for the photo shoot, Aiken also had his hair frosted and his eyebrows bleached, although neither of those were RS firsts.

BELLY AIKEN: Clay is allergic to chocolate, mint, almonds, tree nuts, mushrooms, shellfish and coffee, and despite growing up near the coast, he's petrified of water. But as he revealed to Rolling Stone, his true nemesis is the common house cat: "I think cats are Satan. There's nothing worse to me than a house cat. When I was about 16, I had a kitten and ran over it."

AIKEN PAIN: In response to Aiken's public kitty-bashing, PETA released a print ad that featured Triumph the Insult Comic Dog with a Band-Aid over his snipped doggy bits and the message, "Get Neutered: It didn't hurt Clay Aiken."

FEAT OF CLAY: After the death of Clay's estranged biological father, 68-year-old Vernon Grissom, Aiken rocketed to the top of the Lycos 50, which tracks the most commonly used search terms on Lycos' Internet search engine. According to the results, during the week that ended March 6 Aiken generated more than twice as many searches as socialite-turned-Internet porn star Paris Hilton. The following week, Aiken was overtaken by Hilton, who was subsequently unseated by searches for the NCAA tournament.

FEAT OF CLAY 2: Although Aiken was only second best on "American Idol," he was chosen first in Beautiful Girl magazine's March feature, "20 Hot Guys On Fire for God." Said Beautiful Girl publisher Scarlett Williams, "While other teen magazines rank hot guys on what they look like, we've selected an amazing group of guys for who they look up to. Our readers think that what makes a guy his hottest is his relationship with God."

IDOL CHATTER: Attempting to explain Aiken's popularity to Time magazine, Richard Sanders, executive vice president and general manager of RCA records, said, "I've told everyone they need to look at it this way: Americans buy more vanilla ice cream than any other flavor. Yes, they like their Rocky Road and Cherry Garcia, but ultimately America wants to consume vanilla. So we're going to sell the best vanilla. Given the problems we're facing as an industry, we cannot afford to be judgmental."