Billy Idol

I don’t know why - maybe because of my New Band Day post last week - I’ve been thinking a lot about the way most people seem unable to allow indie/punk/alternative/whatever to co-exist with pop. Why? I’ve read a bunch of reviews of an indie album I love from a few different websites that I actually respect (I won’t mention any names) and they all seem to agree that the album in question is good, but also that it’s quite poppy. Which means, apparently, that it can’t get a properly good review. It’s like a few points are immediately deducted if a band shows any pop influence. I don’t understand why exactly, but I don’t think we’re supposed to ask. (This threatens to crush my theory from the other day, but I think reviewers of the indie/alternative persuasion will probably always be The Resistance.) I’m always the first to complain that most pop - especially right now - is pretty bad, but I don’t mean that anything with poppy elements to it must by nature be terrible.

Which brings me to my Poptastic choice for this week: the one and only Billy Idol. Yes, he was part of the punk phenomenon in England and then used it to become a pop star. But I really have to ask: So what?! Everyone that’s dorky about music knows that this is the cycle that all music makes in the end. A new sound is born, goes through the underground and eventually towards the charts, and then pop versions of it start sprouting up all over the place. It happened to hip-hop (Vanilla Ice), to grunge (Staind, Nickleback), and, yup, it also happened to punk. You can go ahead and blame Billy Idol, but someone else would’ve done it if he hadn’t. (That’s assuming he was the first, which I don’t actually know for sure.) So when this happens to the music we love, why can’t people separate the original stuff from the pop and enjoy them both on their own merits? Why is anything poppy automatically horrible music?

So no, Billy Idol can’t really be considered “real punk” (the solo years, at least), but he sure was fun. I guess I don’t understand why that isn’t enough sometimes. Why can’t we love The Clash and understand what they meant and have a giggle dancing with ourselves every once in a while?

   Billy Idol - Dancing With Myself