Artist Playlists
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With his bleach-blonde spikes and pinup-worthy sneer, Billy Idol was among MTV's most recognizable faces in the '80s. The singer came up in the underrated UK pop-punk band Generation X, but split the group in '81 for a solo career in the U.S. and struck gold: His first four solo LPs were a heady mix of punk, pop, dance, and R&B and established Idol as a worldwide star. A 1990 motorcycle crash nearly killed him, and after '93's Cyberpunk stiffed, Idol took a long hiatus, returning with a new album in '05. His autobiography came out in '14, and he continues to record and tour. - For a true rock ‘n' roll believer like Billy Idol, the classics are always the best. You can hear echoes of the glam attack of Marc Bolan and David Bowie in his howling delivery and gleaming hooks. But his heart belongs to the dark, sardonic passion of The Doors and the rolling raunch of The Rolling Stones, fired up by the aggression and velocity of MC5 and The Damned.
- With his teen-hooligan sneer and ear for unshakable hooks, Billy Idol nudged punk rock from the testosterone-fueled fringe into the mainstream. Even the overdrive of his late-'70s breakout band, Generation X, was tunefully accessible, and his solo career took him deeper into radio-ready pop punk. Idol experimented with industrial beats on 1993's <i>Cyberpunk</i>, and more than two decades later, with <i>Devil’s Playground</i>, he proved he still had arena-rock energy to burn.