YMMV / Billy Idol

• Audience-Alienating Era: He went through one of these in the early '90s. Faced with waning popularity and flagging album sales, he attempted to reinvent his image (and cash in on the emergent hacker/cyberpunk subculture) in 1993 by replacing his bleached-blonde spiky haircut with bleached-blonde dreadlocks and releasing the album Cyberpunk, a fusion of glam rock and electronic dance music. With the exception of the single "Shock to the System" (which was closer in style to his earlier work), the album's songs consisted of overwrought synthesizer riffs, pretentious monologues, and lines lifted directly from William Gibson novels. The album flopped hard: critics universally panned it, Billy's old fans were left feeling betrayed, and real cyberpunk fans saw him as a hopeless poser, spamming him with hate mail. Even though the album has managed to acquire a cult following in the following years, it's still universally agreed that the cover of The Velvet Underground's "Heroin" that appeared on this album is the absolute worst version of the song ever recorded. Idol himself still says he's proud of the album, but he got utterly devastated by the reception it got.
• Awesome Music: Pick up any of his compilations and take your pick. Billy was a hell of a singles artist.
• Covered Up:
  • "Mony Mony," originally by Tommy James & The Shondells, from 1968. In an eerie coincidence, Billy's "Mony Mony" replaced Tiffany's cover of "I Think We're Alone Now" - also by Tommy James & The Shondells - at #1 in the fall of 1987.
  • "To Be a Lover," originally written as "I Forgot to Be Your Lover" by William Bell, also from 1968.
  • "L.A. Woman," originally by The Doors, from their album L.A. Woman.
  • Even "Dancing With Myself" counts! The song was originally by Generation X, Billy's old band, but the remixed version released under his own name is much more widely known.
• Cult Classic: Cyberpunk. It utterly bombed on release, but has managed to gather a small but very dedicated fanbase, including an absurdly informative entry at That Other Wiki.
• Ending Fatigue: His infamous cover of "Heroin" goes on for seven minutes. Granted, it's the same length as the original, but Idol's version is much harder to listen to for that long.
• Epic Riff:
  • The weirdly distorted riff from "Shock To The System."
  • "Rebel Yell" and "Dancing With Myself" also count.
  • "Hot In The City," from his self-titled debut, has an epic synth riff, showing early on that Billy wasn't your average punk.
• Growing the Beard: The self-titled is a bit New Wave-y in spots. Basically, Rebel Yell is where Billy's solo career came into its own just because he concentrates on rocking a lot harder.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The "Heroin" cover could be considered this. Billy singing so fervently about drugs takes on a darker tone when you know that the year after the song, and album, was released, Billy was found outside a Los Angeles nightclub, unconscious and nearly dead from a drug overdose, and rushed to a hospital.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In 1985, Idol declined to record "Don't You Forget About Me," and missed out on what became the Simple Minds' Signature Song. 16 years later...
• Narm Charm:
  • Is Billy a bit over-the-top in his rawk vocals? Of course, but that's part of what makes his music so much fun.
  • Similarly, his Elvis Presley-style sneer is so over the top it comes back to being cool.
• Signature Song: "Dancing With Myself," "Rebel Yell" and "White Wedding" are all candidates.
• So Okay, It's Average: Whiplash Smile and Charmed Life both wound up getting this reception, which is part of the reason why Billy decided to change things up in the early 90s. Unfortunately, that's when things really went sideways.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Cyberpunk, as listed above. It might be the most disastrous New Sound Album of the 1990s, with the possible exception of Moby's Animal Rights.
• Vindicated by History: Cyberpunk is a minor example. The album received harsh criticism back in the day for its massive change in direction (and often still does), but nowadays it's looked back on a bit more fondly, and some consider it one of Idol's more underrated albums. Even fans who aren't sold on the album's concept often defend the music as pretty good (yes, even the infamous "Heroin" cover has developed some fans here and there). Notably, it was the first album to have multimedia features (on floppy disk), which wound up becoming a standard in the 2000s. Todd in the Shadows took a look at the album for his Trainwreckords show in October of 2018, and even after taking Billy to task for his misguided approach, he admitted that in some ways, Cyberpunk really was ahead of its time.
  Todd: Like, what is Soundcloud rap but a bunch of kids with computers making their own version of punk rock without the help of major labels? And don't techno corporations, in fact, control everything now? Like, maybe Billy Idol wasn't the best person to bring it to people's stereos. But Cyberpunk is absolutely the music we need in 2018.

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