From John Lennon to David Bowie: 12 albums Billy Idol can’t live without
Although he burst onto the scene in the late 1970s as the frontman of the punk band Generation X, dressed like a bleached Sid Vicious, Billy Idol had his irons in a few musical fires. Once the punk wave settled into the arbitrary yet highly fruitful realms of new wave and post-punk, Idol found his footing in a pop-punk sound that drew inspiration from classic rock, punk and glam rock.
Like most musicians of his generation, Idol was fascinated by The Beatles, but he was musically inclined even before the Liverpool lads sprung onto the scene. Like his future hero, Iggy Pop, Idol set out in percussion. In 1962, a seven-year-old Idol begged his parents to get him a small scrum set owing to a passion for whacking seven bells out of things.
After learning to lay some basic beats, Idol fell under the Lennon-McCartney spell and realised his centre-stage dreams. “I realised John Lennon and Paul McCartney were at the front, writing the songs, playing the guitars, so I started teaching myself the guitar at ten, to have something to sing along to,” he remembered in a past interview with Classic Rock.
Of the Beatles, Idol was beguiled most by John Lennon’s sharp wit and daring songwriting, both sonically and lyrically. When picking out his 12 favourite albums of all time in a 2005 feature with Entertainment Weekly, Idol overlooked The Beatles catalogue to pick out his favourite from Lennon’s solo canon.
After naming Lennon as a true “hero,” Idol remembered how most fans seemed to like 1971’s Imagine. However, as far as Idol is concerned, it’s all about Lennon’s 1970 solo debut, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. “Most people think Imagine’s the best album,” he said. Adding, “It sucks compared to Plastic Ono, where he’s being raw.”
Indeed, with Lennon’s venture into primal scream therapy in ‘Mother’, the album hears a desperate, troubled Beatle addressing personal demons. This rawness spoke to the punk brewing inside Idol, as had American proto-punk bands like The Stooges and The Velvet Underground.
Intriguingly, Idol recalled that past lovers introduced him to most of his selections, many of which soundtracked sexual liaisons. “Have you heard about this other guy, Iggy Pop?” Idol remembered a teenage girlfriend asking before showing him Raw Power. “So I had sex with this girl and found out about all this great music. If you think about it, that’s how it should be, really. If you’re not having sex to great music, what are you doing?”
Discussing another favourite, the 1972 self-titled debut album of German krautrock band Neu!, Idol noted its main personal distinction from the other albums. “This is actually the one record I haven’t had sex with a girl to,” he added candidly. “Maybe I should try that. But we open the show with ‘Hallogallo’’ Ladies love it.”
No discerning 1970s musician’s rock ‘n’ roll education would be complete without a selection from David Bowie. Idol was a big fan of Bowie, but his horrific 1990 motorbike accident allowed him to make a deeper connection with the 1971 album Hunky Dory. “When I was in the hospital with a broken leg, these three girls brought me Hunky Dory and Fire and Water by Free. I’d be crying one minute, laughing the next,” he remembered. “I had a huge hole in my leg; I could see the bone. So I was like, ‘Now I know what these songs really mean. Fantastic.”’
The crash occurred in February 1990 when Idol ran a stop sign on his Harley Davidson in Los Angeles. He was struck from the side by a passing car, which left one of his legs in a serious state of disrepair. Initially, it was thought that he would lose the leg, but by a miracle, he made a full recovery. The accident became a wider wake-up call in Idol’s life since, at the time, he was struggling with drug addiction.
At the time of the accident, Idol was under the influence of alcohol and “some kind of Quaalude or something,” as he recalled in a 2021 interview with Yahoo Entertainment. “The motorcycle accident was a good sign of ‘You’ve got to stop,’” Idol added.
See the full list of Billy Idol’s 12 album selections below.
Billy Idol picks his 12 favourite albums:
- T. Rex – T. Rex (1970)
- Elvis Presley – Promised Land (1975)
- The Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat (1967)
- The Stooges – Raw Power (1973)
- King Tubby – Dub Reggae (2004)
- The Ramones – Rocket to Russia (1977)
- John Lennon – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
- David Bowie – Hunky Dory (1971)
- Free – Fire and Water (1970)
- Massive Attack Vs. Mad Professor – No Protection (1995)
- Neu! – Neu! (1972)
- The Strokes – Room on Fire (2003)
