Billy Idol - one of the eighties greats!

[phaeryen]

I'm not exactly sure why but I ended up tripping back to the early eighties - early nineties with a certain mr. Billy Idol recently. I'm sure many of the old guard recognize the name since he was top of the world right about the same time the guns were happening.

Billy Idol didn't have the rock credibility but he was a mammoth pop icon with an extremely striking image, and if possible, even more striking voice and charisma. His songs were polished production, kind of a futuristic blend of synthesizers, drum machines and rock guitars thrown in for good measure. He was one of the first posterboys for MTV, one of the first to really hit a homerun with a combination of a video-laden image to some killer good songs. What the image was was a sort of cardboard cutout pastitche of rock cliches and he played the part to a perfect T, almost too perfect considering he never really let his role come off until his career was heavily on the decline. The image thing would have put me off as a young man, but now looking at it, gives the whole thing a very humoristic side or an entry point, which I really like.

I guess I heard some terrible karaoke versions of his stuff and wanted to clear my head with the real versions when I got home which got me thinking DAMN, this stuff is fucking killer...

I usually listen to modern stuff because oldies stuff just somehow doesn't have the vitality for me most of the time, especially the hair rock and metal from the eighties to nineties is just so. challenged in so many ways. Billy Idol's stuff though is senselessly cool though!

just check out some of this stuff and tell me what you think:

Edited April 17, 2012 by phaeryen

[Guest Len B'stard]

Generation X is much better than his solo stuff. Dancing With Myself, WIld Youth, Ready Steady Go, My Generation, eternal classics But he was basically just a blonde haired inoffensive cartoon version of Sid Vicious. He even came from that movement, for extra authenticity. spiky hair, leather jacket, lip curl, cartoon persona and image thats nothing like the real person, Sidney to a T. Love him to bits still but it is what it is. A middle class built to last Sid.

Edited April 16, 2012 by sugaraylen

[phaeryen]

Generation X is much better than his solo stuff. Dancing With Myself, WIld Youth, Ready Steady Go, My Generation, eternal classics But he was basically just a blonde haired inoffensive cartoon version of Sid Vicious. He even came from that movement, for extra authenticity. spiky hair, leather jacket, lip curl, cartoon persona and image thats nothing like the real person, Sidney to a T. Love him to bits still but it is what it is. A middle class built to last Sid.

That's pretty harsh man.

You take the Rebel Yell album, or just a string of his biggest stuff... that's some landmark eighties stuff right there. Some of the very best music of the whole decade! though if you don't like his solo stuff then you just don't.

The middle class thing I don't get, I mean his parents and upbringing up until his late teens might have been as such, but the way he made it was relocating to new york, dirt poor and no career, and just built it all from nothing there

I don't know what sort of a personality would the image entail but he was pretty much living the rock n roll dream, drugs and orgies all the time, for the whole of the eighties... and he did piss a lot of people off!

[gunsguy]

He was before his time I think

[dalsh327]

[Guest Len B'stard]

Generation X is much better than his solo stuff. Dancing With Myself, WIld Youth, Ready Steady Go, My Generation, eternal classics But he was basically just a blonde haired inoffensive cartoon version of Sid Vicious. He even came from that movement, for extra authenticity. spiky hair, leather jacket, lip curl, cartoon persona and image thats nothing like the real person, Sidney to a T. Love him to bits still but it is what it is. A middle class built to last Sid.

That's pretty harsh man.

You take the Rebel Yell album, or just a string of his biggest stuff... that's some landmark eighties stuff right there. Some of the very best music of the whole decade! though if you don't like his solo stuff then you just don't.

The middle class thing I don't get, I mean his parents and upbringing up until his late teens might have been as such, but the way he made it was relocating to new york, dirt poor and no career, and just built it all from nothing there

I don't know what sort of a personality would the image entail but he was pretty much living the rock n roll dream, drugs and orgies all the time, for the whole of the eighties... and he did piss a lot of people off!

Oh don't get me wrong, i'm a big fan and everything, i don't fault the guy for any of that stuff, just saying what is. I think he was great i mean, he never assigned any like...y'know, high fallutin shit to what he does, he never made no bones about being interested in basically rock n roll and his career has reflected that, none of the above was meant to suggest that he was lacking in integrity or anything because i think thats far from the case, quite the opposite i think he's very committed to what he does. he has a very cool bluesy kinda voice too, always struck me as having a sort of Jim Morrison type quality to it. He even showed like, some signs of like...out-of-the-box-ness early on...i believe there's like dub version of Wild Youth out there.

Cool huh? But yeah, it's just like saying Steve Stevens is a Johnny Thunders clone, it just is what it is, it don't mean he's anything less than a fabulous guitarist and probably, at least in a technical sense, a better guitarist than Steve Stevens (although i don't put a lot of stock in all that technical ability stuff).

Edited April 17, 2012 by sugaraylen

[Guest Len B'stard]

Does the music even matter to you?

it does, yeah, it's just not what i was talking about in this instance because it didn't seem to be the basis of what the OP had started the topic on, there's only a brief mention of music in the original post, the rest appeared to be about image. And if we're gonna get pedantic about this Billy Idol hardly had a Marvin Gaye-esque set of pipes. I mean he's good and everything, as was Morrison but if we're gonna start deriding people for "bleating like a goat" then lets be fair about this, Idol and Morrison weren't no great shakes as vocalists either, in the classical sense. A lot of what carried their shit off was image. I mean they used what they had well and in the context of the shit they were doing it worked perfect but thats not the same as being a brilliant singer.

Edited April 17, 2012 by sugaraylen

[phaeryen]

Hey there I did talk about music there!!!! I'm all about the songs myself, but when talking about a phenomenom like Billy Idol I end up talking about the image so much because it stirs me in a few different ways: I recognize in me the serious-about-music guy, who naturally detests pandering to the women via sex like Idol does, who is what I was all about ten years ago for example, but now also find myself thinking and feeling how cool, in a comic-book sort of way, the image thing he had is, admiring how sort of believable his bravado is, and above all, how comical it is! And comical is good. Music, or atleast the music Billy Idol had, should be enjoyed with a smile and a laugh.

Oops, another long passage just about image. sorry.

I could go on at length about steve stevens or the danceable drum programming too. but how much discussion would that generate? probably not a whole lot which is why I decided against it.

About Idol's singing : I find it absolutely pleasurable. I don't understand calling him out as a techincally bad singer, for me a song like Sweet Sixteen demonstrates he can do great things. wouldn't want to see him try a musical let alone opera but for rock n roll and the ballads, he's got plenty to dish out ... ?

Edited April 17, 2012 by phaeryen

[Guest Len B'stard]

Sorry, i wasn't criticising or anything it's just that AAO was asking me whether i cared about music as i was talking about image which i was doing cuz you were, i weren't saying it was a bad thing to talk about image or anything, in fact i was addressing what appeared to be AAO being critical of the fact that my comments were specifically about the image aspect

And i didn't say you didn't mention music i just said the majority of your post was about image, not as a criticism, i was enjoying our little chat, it's just AAO asked so i was telling.

I'm glad you mentioned the comical aspect of his bravado cuz that's also a parrallel to ol' Sidney, not that thats leading up to some big point or anything, just saying. Just to clarify though, these are like, just parrallels that i'm drawing here that sort of assist me in contextualising a particular artist it's not like an attack or something or the basis of some case i'm trying to make that somehow Billy Broad owes his career to Sid Vicious or The Sex Pistols, they're just offhand comments based on observations of mine, thats all.

And i find his voice pleasurable too man, i think i've misrepresented myself here a little or else my posts aren't being read but i don't dislike Billy Idol, i love Billy Idol, this is why i can point out obscure B sides he did with Generation X, i'm a fan, i have the albums, i wasn't standing on a soap box and preaching the gospel of the Anti-Idol, i was just making a couple of observations regarding the image aspect of Billy. My comment on his voice was in response to AAO's inference that Sid Viciouses voice was horrible (to which many people would agree) but it's like what you say, for rock n roll/ballads it's a good voice it works but it's hardly the benchmark by which to start making comparisons against people that you deem to "bleat like a goat" cuz hey, he's good but he ain't no Marvin Gaye by a long chalk.

Did i catch yous two on a bad day or something? If i'd've wanted to slag Billy off and say he was a straight rip off from the whole Pistols thing i could very very easily do so, it's not in the least bit complicated it's just i don't think thats the case. In fact i have a lot of respect for ol' Bill, like i say he's an artist i have a lot of time for.

Edited April 17, 2012 by sugaraylen

[phaeryen]

forum-life wise you catch me on one of the greatest days, Im happy to see actual discussion in this thread! :chef:

Sorry to put you on the defensive a little bit, I did read everything you wrote and appreciated it. Why I "counter-attacked" twice was just because I felt like writing about good ol' Billy. Kind of like attacking invisible strawmen that werent even there or something. :krider:

I do confess to never visiting his generation X days really, apart from the stuff he redid, dancing with myself/mony mony cover?

How do you feel about the Cyberpunk album? I find it a hugely underrated album. I'm geeky enough to fully get the cyberpunk thematics he was going for, but more than that, I really like the early nineties futuristic production and songwriting. I think I read they did it in an almost completely software environment, kind of like records are now made straight into a computer, no small feat for an album that was somewhere in the earliest years of the nineties, on crummy 386/486 PC systems or something... a huge amount of care and time was invested to give it a soundtracky feeling combined with just solidly written, wants-to-be-a-single kind of songs.

Edited April 17, 2012 by phaeryen

[Guest Len B'stard]

Cyber-Punk was fucking brilliant although it sank like a fucking stone commercially, didn't it, in 93? That kinda took the wind out of his sails which fuckin sucks cuz it was a REALLY interesting direction for him to go in, it just seemed like one of those, y'know, 4 or 5 rock n roll albums and then i'm done with that and exploring other avenues but like, the lack of commercial recognition kinda put paid to that. Such a shame though, i mean i don't harbour any delusions about Bill becoming some kind of fuckin Frank Zappa type character but it would've been at least interesting to see where he went with it cuz i liked Cyber Punk although i think i'm pretty much the only person i ever knew of until your good self just now that has ever listened to it Haven't listened to it in fucking donkeys though...many many moons...Adam in Chains i remember, Shock to the System...fuck, i really can't remember shit from it but as i recall reading somewhere, this is all post listening to the album tons that it set a lot of prescedents in terms of like, now i dunno shit about computers so i dunno what the proper words are but like, using multimedia to like...promote your thing or whatever.

And MAAAAN, you gotta fuckin hear his Generation X stuff, it's fuckin fantastic and in case you're put off by the whole association with that horrible lot out of London in the mid to late 70s his solo career was very much a continuation of the whole Gen X thing but fuck me man, OK, 3 tracks you listen to em and tell me if they ain't the greatest thing since sliced bread:

Brillant pop-tastic track...and really brave too cuz Billy copped a load of shit from the London punk lot for being like, a pop-type person...and he goes and sticks a lyric like "i was in love with the beatles, i was in love with the stones, i was in love with Bobby Dylan cuz i'm in love with rock n roll" in a song back then was SERIOUSLY brave, y'know, in the heady days of "No Elvis Beatles or The Rolling Stones" Billy did a complete about turn on em

King Rockeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Your Generation (Bill draws the line!)

i love his little rap on King Rocker too, "Ali, bouncing like a bee, Elvis in the corner and he won't catch me!"

Edited April 17, 2012 by sugaraylen

[dalsh327]

Can't mention Billy in his heyday without bringing Steve Stevens up, and I might be wrong, but is Dancing Myself w/ Gen X and solo the same song? That's unusual for a solo act to use the same song from their prior band and put their name on it.

[Zint]

A guilty pleasure..for sure.

[Gunner55]

I saw him open for Def Leppard in summer 08. Was familiar with his hits but thats about it. All in all turned out to be a great live show though. Even for an opener he had a damn long set (not complaining though). I was surprised that he looked as young as he did. Looks like he barely aged a bit. Haha

It was cool, during Mony Mony some fan jumped the stage. Billy's leaning down at the crowd letting them sing into the microphone, this guy runs up and taps him on the shoulder. Billy puts his arm around him while singing and starts dancing/hopping around with him. Lasted like, 5 seconds before security dragged the guy off but still, he handled it pretty cool.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Can't mention Billy in his heyday without bringing Steve Stevens up, and I might be wrong, but is Dancing Myself w/ Gen X and solo the same song? That's unusual for a solo act to use the same song from their prior band and put their name on it.

I think it's like, it was on the tale on the Gen X thing so it didn't get much notice as a track but it was too good of a track to just be left at that. Apparently it's about wanking. They did re-record it solo but they didn't really do anything to it.

[phaeryen]

Can't mention Billy in his heyday without bringing Steve Stevens up, and I might be wrong, but is Dancing Myself w/ Gen X and solo the same song? That's unusual for a solo act to use the same song from their prior band and put their name on it.

I think it's like, it was on the tale on the Gen X thing so it didn't get much notice as a track but it was too good of a track to just be left at that. Apparently it's about wanking. They did re-record it solo but they didn't really do anything to it.

Also, it had a significant meaning to Billy Idol according to one lengthy interview I went through, because it was a part of his "old" career on the old continent. Remember, he moved to the states, to New York, to start a fresh thing from scratch. He didn't expect it but found people dancing and partying to "Dancing With Myself" at a club.

Keeping a track like that going can and shoud work for a man in a couple of special ways...

[tat2d1]

I woulod love to get to see Billy Idol in concert.....

[Guest Len B'stard]

Can't mention Billy in his heyday without bringing Steve Stevens up, and I might be wrong, but is Dancing Myself w/ Gen X and solo the same song? That's unusual for a solo act to use the same song from their prior band and put their name on it.

I think it's like, it was on the tale on the Gen X thing so it didn't get much notice as a track but it was too good of a track to just be left at that. Apparently it's about wanking. They did re-record it solo but they didn't really do anything to it.

Also, it had a significant meaning to Billy Idol according to one lengthy interview I went through, because it was a part of his "old" career on the old continent. Remember, he moved to the states, to New York, to start a fresh thing from scratch. He didn't expect it but found people dancing and partying to "Dancing With Myself" at a club.

Keeping a track like that going can and shoud work for a man in a couple of special ways...

Yeah, often some really good music gets lost in the shuffle of like, y'know, bands breaking up/making up/going solo etc etc

[Zint]

When I flew over to England in '91 to see Guns at Wembley Stadium...the months leading up to the show it was being hyped that the guys in Guns were trying to get Gen X together to open for them at this show,It seemed for a while like it was going to happen.

That would have been a HUGE bonus for me.

Alas it didn't happen...but we did get Nine Inch Nails opening so that was pretty cool too!

oh and...Skid Row played as well

[AndyM]

I saw Billy Idol in 93 with the Manic Street Preachers supporting Bon Jovi at Milton Keynes!

[phaeryen]

I saw Billy Idol in 93 with the Manic Street Preachers supporting Bon Jovi at Milton Keynes!

Wow, crazy lineup. Bon Jovi doesn't work for me at all but would pay anything to see b.idol+manics on the same night.

... Any cool stories to tell involving mr B.Idol and/or his music? Ladies of the forum, looking your way here now.

[MB.]

I love Billy Idol! He is one of my favorites.

I also always thought of his music as my 'guilty pleasure'.