Tonight at 7pm, check out the Billy Idol Retrospective on Grant’s Rock Warehaus on YouTube. Thanks so much for Grant inviting me as we blast through the entire Billy Idol solo catalog as well as some of his rare vinyl releases. We had a great time and I hope you will too!! Give it a watch and then Subscribe to Grant’s channel as there is so much fantastic content!!
I have done two posts already on the Best & Worst songs from every Judas Priest album, Cheap Trick and even Whitesnake. I really enjoyed doing those so I thought I would continue that process and this time we would go through every Billy Idol album and see what is the best song and the worst one off each album as well. Billy Idol has 8 studio albums to go through and we will throw in the 3 E.P.’s and the 2 Vital Idol remix albums for fun. So, sit back and take it all in. Let’s preface this with the fact that these are my choices and not necessarily yours as we can have different opinions. If you watched the show you will see that sometimes my worst song was their favorite so you never know what people like and we all like different things or this would be a very dull world. I hope you enjoy!!
BEST SONG – “DANCING WITH MYSELF”: The Gen X track, “Dancing With Myself”, was not re-recorded for this release. Instead, they took the extended version of the original song which was over 6 minutes and remixed it down to under 5 minutes to change it up a bit. It is still just as fantastic as the original cause it was still the original. The song was released as a single, but didn’t do anything. I don’t know if it was bad timing or what it was as it is a great song. It wasn’t until 2 years later when they released as a bonus track on the first full length album did the song finally blow up.
WORST SONG – “MONY, MONY”: The song is a cover of Tommy James & the Shondell’s #1 song, “Mony, Mony”. The song was a really good cover, but it didn’t really do much on the radio. Compared to what was to come later from this song when he released the live version years later, this version is a little flat and doesn’t have the sonics and feel of that version. It is missing a little of that charm and energy. It is not a bad introduction to Billy, just kind of missed the mark as I know the live version so well.
Continue reading “Billy Idol – The Best and Worst Songs on Every Album (The Billy Idol Series)”
A short time after Billy’s comeback release, ‘Devil’s Playground’, he thought (or somebody thought), we should release a Christmas Album. I don’t know if it was because of the positive feedback for the Christmas song on the last album “Yellin’ at the Xmas Tree” or drugs, but they decided to do it.
Now, “Yellin’ at the Xmas Tree” is absolutely fantastic. It is a rocking Idol song and I love the twist on the song that it is not all happy and joyful at Christmas. Some people don’t have the stereotypical Yuletide joy.
This album is nothing like that. It is Billy putting on his dinner jacket, pouring himself a drink and playing traditional Christmas songs in both a traditional or even a smoke-filled room jazz style.
The album is full of songs you know and love (well, the original versions you love) and it even has two brand new songs written by Billy…oh joy!! I know…you can feel my excitement. I am sorry…I will be completely honest with you. I HATE CHRISTMAS ALBUMS!!! That isn’t entirely true. If you want to do a compilation Christmas albums with different artists singing the best versions of Christmas songs…I am all for it. If it s one Singer or one Band doing a whole entire 40 minute album of them doing Christmas Songs..,please count me out!!!
Continue reading “Billy Idol – ‘Happy Holidays’ – Album Review (The Billy Idol Series)”
2 Loud 2 Old Music 