Emissions
Billy Idol sold his hedonistic act & lifestyle to MTV in the 80s and it was a match made in heaven. Thanks to Billy's snarling sexuality and his mix of hard rock with new wave thanks to longtime collaborator Steve Stevens, Billy used the fledgling cable channel as not a springboard but a rocketship to superstardom. He'd already received attention and airplay thanks to White Wedding and with 4 singles off of Rebel Yell Billy's star rose to great heights in the US. However, in his home country of the UK, Billy didn't enjoy the same success. Maybe due to no MTV or perhaps the fact that the English public saw him as a punk and wouldn't consider him as a pop/rock singer, this album only achieved silver status in England while going double platinum in the US.
The singles Rebel Yell (names after a chance encounter with The Rolling Stones), Eyes Without a Face (named after a French horror film), Flesh for Fantasy (also swiped from an old movie) and Catch My Fall, Billy had 4 charting singles and 4 videos that we talk about in-depth on the show. This was the album that allows him to still tour & perform to this day and while some of the songs sound like they were recorded in 1983, some are timeless relics of the cassette era.
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