— Sue Dando
Part 3: Billiam Woos America
Billiam sat in the Pam Am lounge, sipping on his Jack and coke. No one else cared that he was a world famous pop star but, then again, he had been in the UK for just over a week and hardly anyone in the whole country gave a toss. It hadn't been all that long ago that he began looking forward to trips back home. He'd see some old mates, wander around London like he used to and indulge in some proper British chocolate. But lately he had begun looking forward to being back in New York. He didn't grow up there but it's a city with everything. Plus, no one in his hometown cared about him anymore — either that or they cared too much.
A woman in her late twenties entered the lounge. She sat down, ordered cup of coffee and looked at a newspaper. Billiam looked over at her but she was unaware of him staring at her. She looked professional and these were typically the sort of women he steered clear of. The ladies would throw themselves at him so much that he couldn't recall the last time he approached one...
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I give up! This is now the third time round for Billy Idol on this blog (with at least one more to go!) and I can't bring myself to keep this short story idea going any longer. It began as a laugh, with a piece describing what I might do with the so-called Just Billiam stories (which was, in truth, just an opportunity to avoid having to write something approximating an actual review); I didn't bother composing story for that entry. I would return to the "series" for the next post covering Sir Billiam in which I tried to describe how a very fictionalized facsimile of the star would have gone about living a rock 'n' roll lifestyle. I don't know if I succeeded but it was good fun to write. Still, that's enough of that. It's time I gave Sir Billiam of Idol his "due" with some legit "criticism".
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One of the most striking features about Billy Idol was that he often did better the second time around. He had initially been part of the so-called Bromley Contingent, a pack of punk hangers-on who were a vital part of the genre's image. While chums Siouxsie Sioux and Steve Severin would go on to form Siouxsie & The Banshees, the former William Board put together Generation X, a group of little renown beyond their charismatic frontman. Members would come and go before Idol decided to try his luck Stateside. It would be a good move even though it would take time for American audiences to warm to him.
He smartly snapped up Generation X's final single, "Dancing with Myself", and did it again on his own. The record didn't sell but it became a signature number and it would open the door for future hits. The Don't Stop E.P. followed. It featured a cover of the Tommy James & The Shondells hit "Mony Mony" and closed with (imagine that) "Dancing with Myself" and gave the singer his first entry on the American Hot 100. Six years later, live recording of the former gave him a US number one and a British top 10 hit. UK success was slower than in his new homeland. Singles like "Hot in the City" and "Rebel Yell" did no better than "Dancing with Myself" while they and "White Wedding" all did well in the US. It was only with "Eyes Without a Face" that Idol could lay claim to a single that hadn't been a flop — and even then, it was something he wasn't able to capitalise on.
Idol's British salvation wouldn't emerge until the following year and it would be via that most unlikely of mediums: the remix album. As LP types go, remix albums are low priority, reserved mainly for dance acts to collect various 12" mixes as a supplementary release. Hardcore fans scoop them up just as they would a live album or a Christmas record but casual listeners tend to stay away. But they didn't with Vital Idol, which became his first top 10 album. If Neil Tennant had been sufficiently charmed by the Rebel Yell album with its "blend of disco, rock 'n' roll and daft horror-movie imagery" then the public only craved more only dancier, louder and longer. Billy Idol had always been a caricature of a punk but now he was only just starting to embrace it.
This image of Idol as a buffoon didn't travel. He was a bona fide rock star in the US and he played the part to the fullest extent. His appeal crossed genres, with metal heads, pop kids and old school rockers all finding something in his records. American music in the late eighties was getting older and more mainstream and it's to the credit of fans that they made room for someone like Idol to stand in contrast to all the roots rock and MOR.
As 1987 began to wind down, Idol's record label Chrysalis released Idol Songs: 11 of the Best. Yes, it's a chintzy number of tracks for a greatest hits but it wasn't as if his discography was overflowing with golden greats. The live version of "Mony Mony" had just been a hit and his British popularity had never been greater. It was here that "Hot in the City" would get its second shot at chart action. Sue Dando reckons punters were fools to pass up on it the first time round but Sir Billiam was much to close to the punk action from which he was "birthed" to be taken seriously. From the distance of ten years since his pals uttered some naughty language in the company of Bill Grundy, he could be gauged more accurately as a chancer trying to make the most of his modest talents.
The single itself is standard Idol, if less catchy than "Rebel Yell" or "White Wedding". It drips with Americana, something that, again, might not have appealed to Brits in the early eighties but was just what people in the decade's latter half were craving. The Rolling Stones never seemed more English than when they tried to be as American sounding as possible; Idol actually seemed to pull it off better than most of his compatriots. It would be nice if it had more of a dance sound (the 'Exterminator Mix' on Vital Idol is superior to the original single) but '87 was all about getting back to basics so he had that going for him too.
The genius of Billy Idol was his ability to square the circle of people's expectations. Americans took him as a real, blood 'n' guts rocker, the British wanted him to be more of a pantomime act and somehow he managed to be both. And this is something a far more talented individual would never have managed to accomplish. Well done, Sir Billiam!
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Public Enemy: "Bring the Noise"
Sir Billiam tried to be the punk that is all things to all people but he didn't reckon with the real sound of the streets. And it's just as well since an Idol rap tune would be appallingly bad — possibly even worse than the Public Enemy/Anthrax version of "Bring the Noise". This original version, mercifully, is free of guitars but bursting with Chuck D's raps and a metric ton of samples. At a time when hip hop was bursting with boastfulness, Public Enemy were something different and well ahead of all that 'keeping it real' nonsense that would come along in the next decade. They were never really my thing but that's much more on me than them.
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