TRAINWRECKORDS: "Cyberpunk" by Billy Idol
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- Опубліковано 30 жов 2018
- 1993 was not such a nice day to start again for Billy Idol, when he released his bizarre concept album about cyborgs and virtual reality!
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In 1981 I gave Billy Idol directions to the bathroom in the restaurant where I worked as a dishwasher. He seemed like a humble guy, even a bit shy; maybe a little embarrassed to be asking where the "loo" was. Even though he was dressed in full Billy Idol regalia, he seemed like a nice fellow. He was polite, friendly, and even said thanks as he was leaving.
Proof that not all pop artists/rockers from back in the day weren’t assholes:)
Reminds me of the end airplane scene in The Wedding Singer.
I've heard orher people say dhe same thing about him
Well, that didn’t happen when _I_ met him.
I saw Billy Idol at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
@@ShadowSorel "Just becuse you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything." (Bob Dylan)
Can we just do "Nirvana Killed My Career" as a running series?
How about changing it to "Nirvana ended my time in the spotlight".
He could even include the grunge bands themselves; grunge more or less died with the end of Nirvana and Pearl Jam's war with ticketmaster.
As a true lover of 80's music, the list of hair/glam metal bands and AOR bands derailed by grunge would be endless. LOL
It really is amazing how much of a 180 degree turn the music business did after "Nevermind."
How about New Jack Swing? how long did it last?
Mike Burns to be fair glam metal by 1991 had gotten really cheesy and overproduced so its end was pretty much inevitable by that point! Plus it got so watered down that bands like Firehouse, Nelson, Winger, Trixter, Steelheart...etc etc came across like boy bands with long hair and guitars.
Lol I like how it's Nirvana that's the culprit in all of these, like an episode of Scooby Doo. "Now let's see who really killed our career, gang!" "Why, it's old man Cobain!"
[Star-wipes to "Smells Like Teen Spirit"]
"Why have my record sales dried up?!"
Cut to Nirvana, listening in on his victim around the corner. Cracking up. Runs away and shouts, with a smile:
"Team Grunge blasting off!"
He goes after another cheesy 80s act.
Kurt never lived long enough to be an old man so I've no idea why you ruined the joke by adding old man to it...
@Vampyre Underground You do realise it’s meant to be a reference to those old Scooby Villains like “old man Jenkins!” just with Cobain inserted. It’s not that deep bro.
@@avacatherine5646 What's funny is that Old Man Jenkins is a Spongebob character
Then everything changed when Nirvana attacked
*Star-wipe to "Smells Like Teen Spirit"*
With all the conspiracies surrounding Kurt Cobain's death, I'm surprised no one has suggested he was murdered by an artist whose career he killed.
SuperDevolution Ooooh
This is my new favorite conspiracy theory.
Well, shit. *grabs tinfoil* let's do this.
@@JennaLeigh We meet on Friday nights by the docks.
@@SuperDevolution I'll bring sammiches.
The album cover looks like a deep fried meme
Truly ahead of his time, this man
hart
WHEN YOU
BOTTOM TEXT
It reminds me of that one Windows Media Player effect
Yeah so much about this album is pretty ahead of its time
CY🅱️ERPUNK
"Punk is kids banging in their garage"
- Todd in the Shadows
Dominguez Films I’m the crustiest punk I got three teen babymamas at 17
my former best friend claims kurt cobain was featured on all albums by megadeth and metallica and slayer and anthrax
@@SneedyKetler Do you hang around outside a crusty convenience store and sip on 40s of beer in a plastic grocery bag? Or drink it in a friend's basement which smells like smoke and has wooden paneling?
@@Theevil6ify Ahh... Those we're the days!
Funny, I thought it was death, crime, and the rage of a beast. Shows what I know...
Billy Idol, in his old age, laying in the hospital after an accident, eyes shining as he whispers to himself the Dad Joke of all Dad Jokes,
“I’m a _cyber punk”_
He lost the chance to play a robot because of that accident. As the T-1000 in Terminator 2 (it's true he had been cast)!
Should've put him in Cyberpunk 2077
@@davidjames579 That sounds more like he had a repressed dream he vent to the album.
Hoping T2 would feature it.
@@liamdude5722 "Wake up... Cyberpunk, we have a city to burn"
@@davidjames579 that is a depressing shame. But at least we got the legendary film we got.
Almost like how we nearly got OJ Simpson for T1 but they didnt cast him because "No one would buy such a nice guy was a villain."
In the intro of Trainwreckords, Todd always hypes the artists so much it sounds like they were The Beatles of their era every time.
And the funny stuff happens when we get to the "but" or "however".
Billy Idol was kinda a big deal in the 80s.
Not Styx.
@@chrisjt86 that's because they objectively suck
The funniest part is then seeing Billy being dismissed as a "cartoon sellout" in another Trainwreckords video.
It's a shame the album tanked. There's a lot of genuine enthusiasm for trying new art forms here. Always sad to see that kind of energy die.
My friend had the album back in ‘93 and I laughed at it. I just bought it the other day and I really like it now!
Its kind of ironic that Billy Idol was cheese on for being a "poser" for squatting on the punk and the joy division look, while making music for "dads creeping on Phoebe Cates", but his look in the 80s and his cyberpunk era look was soo ripped off by every RPG rules writer for the next 15 years he was actually the trendsetter for 2nd wave a geek culture we enjoy now.
@@oximofo9 And shit, listen to "Adam in Chains" and tell me that doesn't sound like some proto-vaporwave music. Billy really WAS ahead of his time with Cyberpunk, even if he did look like an absolute poser by getting outed for not actually reading Neuromancer.
it was criminally underrated! i'll always love this album, even decades later, i reckon.
Yeah, listening to the music and Idol's thought process I'm reminded of David Bowie or the Beatle's psychadelic turn, trying to infuse popular music with avant garde ideas.
I just feel the gap between concept and execution is a little too wide, and it doesn't help that the 90s was a period where computers were just powerful enough that the idea of using them more for visual art was seductive, but they just weren't to the point where they were powerful enough to achieve the desired effects. Everything just ends up feeling ugly, garish, and pixelated.
And yet I can't help but feel affection for it as someone who grew up in the 90s, immersed in nerd culture.
Fun Fact: The motorcycle accident Billy Idol was in scuttled his chances to play the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Imagine if Billy Idol managed to land the role of the T-1000...
That's nuts because my fave thing about Robert Patrick was how stone cold serious he was and cold blooded he came off as. Billy would be too campy for me lol.
@@sirekumasutra7022 not necessarily. Keep in mind who the director was. I think Billy would have made a great T-1000 simply because 1) he had the look, and 2) Cameron would have reigned in any bullshit that didn't fit his vision.
Blackie Lawless also was tapped for that role
@@TheRealNormanBates I agree, Cameron couldve made Billy into a seriously good actor, kinda like what Sling Blade did for Dwight Yoakam.
Mabye he too could have gotten a role as a sports store owner with a gambling addiction
"I don't use heroin. That's not me advocating for a drug-free life. I'm a miserable asshole and maybe I should." I love you, Todd.
"We're at a rave, a heroin rave!"
I laughed and then got really, really sad. The idea of a "heroin rave" is so stark and heartbreaking. I just want to hug a family member now.
A heroin rave would just be a bunch of people laying around, nodded out, drooling on themselves. Basically everyday for me in my 20's :(
Heroin😥 EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!!😁
I walked into one in the mid-'90s...and promptly walked tf back out. Never went to a rave again. :(
A heroin rave would be awesome... i mean, it would be a bunch of people napping to trance, but still kind of awesome.
It would just be a party at a terminal cancer ward.
With his dreads he looks like a soundcloud rapper
OuCH
Lol LiliDolMane.
Orion Durdaller Yeah we can at least agree to not try to chance his hair too much
Lil Idol
That’s a bigger insult than anything else I could come up with. At least Billy’s got SOME talent
I did backing vocals on this album. I also co-wrote one of the songs (the duet I sang on). I think this album was just a little before it’s time, mostly in the way it was marketed using a fledgling internet. Plus people didn’t want Bill to expand his horizons. I personally really like it, and am proud to have worked on it.
Is his real life attitude any close to his stage persona?
Didn't realize that you sang "Naked in the rain". I've been to parties that played that. Great track.
Dave Stevens yeah, he’s pretty consistent. LOL.
Love your work Durga! You the other ladies made those live performances soar on those later years Floyd tours and live albums!
Is that you? on ua-cam.com/video/7LuIPSfE0Sw/v-deo.html cyberpunk tour? you were really gougeous. I love the album
"It was called Cyberpunk and it BOMBED" - This sentence just couldn't age better.
Lol
For reals
is this in reference to CP2077?
@@barbutahelmet8966 perhaps, its really hard to tell :)
@@notenoughram3312 Hmm, I know I've heard that tune at 3:32 somewhere 🧐
"The rioters weren't blasting Billy Idol."
And now I'm imagining one of the rioters playing white wedding on their boom box on a constant loop.
Gives major GTA San Andreas flashbacks. Blasting White Wedding on the radio as rioters throw Molotovs in the street as you drive by in your car
Or maybe Rebel Yell
🏙🔥🚔🔥🏙 📻🗧🎜 "I'm dancing with myself, oh-oh" 🕺 🔥🔥🚑
Rioters don't play music that good. It's all shitty noise.
rioters burning down a building: IT'S HOT IN THE CITY, HOT IN THE CITY TONIGHT! (TONIGHT!)
"This band called Rage Against the Machine. You might have heard of them."
Immediately remembers that one time someone requested RATM as a One Hit Wonderland.
What?
Jared Hatcher they’re a one hit wonder in Europe as well as most of the world.
KDog1265 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂👌
They made 4 consistently successfull albums. And even first, which got most famous ones had at least two-three big hits.
One second to Hell yeah
This album is actually pretty cool looking back 30 years on.
Like floppy discs with material on it that came with the album? That’s just so incredibly smart and foreword thinking, and I love that embrace of technology.
Not long after this people would be clamoring to buy CDs to place in their PCs and access special content from their favorite artists. Honestly I think this album just fell into a niche that was too mainstream for Cyberpunk fans and too obscure for Billy Idol popular music fans. But I absolutely respect Billy for the risk he took with this album.
I liked Billy Idol's 80s hits, but this one has just grown on me (esp the 8 minute song heroin) and is my favorite of his
He should just have done 12 versions of the intro to the Adam in Chains song and called it Vaporwave
@@nonewmsgsdude why, this album sucks. It sounds forced and hollow.
Every song in this video seemed pretty good. The music videos looked goofy but the music sounded great at leas the tracks showcased here.
Fun Fact: for the video of a shock to the system, the stop motion scenes of him covered in a metal monster is a nod to the 1989 Japanese horror Tetsuo: the Iron Man. it's a strange film if you can stomach it.
Two words: Drill. Penis.
i was thinking this exact thing, it was actually super cool to see a reference to that movie!
The one where he fucks a girl to death?
Great film.
i love that film and even i can't stomach it most of the time
It seems to me that maybe the big problem is he didn't go all the way with the camp. Billy Idol has always been over-the-top. Maybe no one wanted to hear him sing about depressing shit like the LA riots and heroin. I actually think this album would've done well if he sang about fighting robots with lazers and shit. That's a ride we might have been willing to come along with Billy Idol for.
As much a sell-out as he was you can't deny his genuine (even if misguided) fascination with the new technology, and he didn't try to water down this personal vision by way of say, 80's hair metal acts trying to go grunge or classic acts pandering to the new MTV generation (think unplugged sessions, cashing in on potential new fans by way of reunion tours, etc.)
He didn't want to get too edgy (like U2 or as many other commenters also pointed out, Bowie), yet didn't want to go full mainstream either and this compromise hurt him (at least commercially)
Jared Low
Bowie was pretty edgy from the beginning. As a matter of fact, his decline was because he DIDN’T want to be edgy.
Eeh, at the time if he went even more camp, he would've been even more ignored
If he'd been a little more self-aware and ironic as a sellout MTV punk, he could have had an audience of Gen Xers who could rationalize their enjoyment as being ironic. Idol was obviously aware of Max Headroom, he should have been more inspired by that instead of believing sincerely in a digital revolution
I imagine a lot of the reason the album did so poorly is that the sort of people who buy Billy Idol albums aren't into weird experimental albums like "Cyberpunk" and the sort of people who buy weird experimental albums wouldn't be inclined to run out and buy the new Billy Idol album.
Indeed, who its it for. Well, kids who buy computer mags until they realise it's a not graphics program.
There is exactly one person into both Billy Idol and weird experimental electronica, and that person is me.
"cyberpunk"is neither weird nor experimental outside of billy idols work, though. it's not like it had a chance.
@@LittleGreenSoldier It was made for you.
@@LittleGreenSoldier you ain't alone
Such a shame. Dude has that great, screamy growl he could have totally leaned in to that and gone for a more stripped down sound, done a Tom Waits thing
Bone Machine was much closer to the punk ethos than this album was.
Now I wanna hear a rave remix of "Tom Traubert's Blues"
The original Heroin is also about 7 minutes long, but it is soooooo good. The way it builds to a frenzy and comes down was meant to sound like a heroin high felt. Anyone watching this video who has never listened to it needs to.
I listened to it, and while I do like it, I actually like Billy's version too
i like billy's version, but i _love_ the original. it's so raw and beautiful.
Original version makes me feel panicked, I love it.
To be honest I listened it after seeing this video and was horribly disappointed...
It's just Lou reciting poem on top of basic late 60's guitar backing track and long held notes, that get really annoying the longer the song goes... It even lacks the greatest line from Billy Idols version!
"Jesus died for someones sins but not mine". Is brilliant. I really thought that was Lous writing...
I've had the CD album in my collection for some 7 years, but I've never really registered that song when listening it. No wonder why.
Heroin high doesn’t feel like that. It feels like what “Silent Lucidity” by Queensryche sounds like
Funnily enough, Bowie was also in LA during the riots and was trapped in a downtown penthouse for quite a while. Just another example of how he’s tied to everything.
Speaking of Bowie, is this even all that different from what he'd be doing two years later? (With a better album, but still.)
Sort of, but Bowie had Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails to help out with it
Bowie also wrote his own song about the LA Riots, also released roughly a year after they happened: "Black Tie White Noise", the title track to the album of the same name (the album itself is fairly divisive, but it's generally credited with ending his 1980's creative nadir as a solo artist). The song appears to be more or less a dry parody of 80's charity singles, to the point of taking a jab at "We Are the World", with an underlying message of "racial harmony is possible and will eventually happen, but not without a LOT of shit going down along the way." Overall, it's not a bad song, but like the rest of the album it's on, your mileage may vary regarding it (I myself like the songs I've heard from the album).
@@jamespw6206 what album was it? I'm a big NIN fan
@@Revealingstorm. "1. Outside", by David bowie. Trent actually wasn't involved with its production, but the influence is pretty clear. Also, they toured together later that year.
I've read a lot about this album. Idol seemed really sincere about it. He spoke with a lot of big people within the cyberpunk community and consulted cyberpunk forums frequently. However, a large number of that same community resented Idol for bringing their special personal thing out and trying to make it mainstream. There is a lot of reading material about this album that I highly recommend. Go check it out.
@limelight81 Just using the terms they used so as not to cause confusion, but you may be right.
OMG!!! A Quantum Leap ref!!! So cool! The episode is called Glam Rock and that's ridiculously appropriate. OK yeah I'm old 😂 (oh and his reflection in that one was Meat Loaf)
Any specifics on that reading material?
@@dickwhiskey8041 This was years ago at this point, about six months or so before I made the initial comment. All I can remember at this point is that it took good old dedicated time and research, so probably not anything on the first couple of search pages. Sorry that I can't help more, but things are crazy right now, and I've forgotten a lot of little things like that.
Okay thanks!
My brother had this cassette and used to listen to it while shooting hoops. I can distinctly remember many a missed free throw to the strains of "Adam in Chains."
I love stories like this, remembering where you were while listening to a specific song
There are a few errors here: he got permission to use the cyberpunk manifesto as the opening and he did in fact read Neuromancer. Not that that makes it less nerdy. But also it feels very much like the cool guy who's gotten injured being laid up for awhile and having nothing else to do and so he ends up reading comic books and getting excited about them
The semi-stop motion, sliding backwards as wires and stuff crawl over him part is from Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989). That's a pretty obscure reference. It's cool and all, but like his Heroin cover, he misses the point of the scene entirely. It's supposed to be losing your sanity in a scary, hysterical feeling, not a colorful moment surrounded by extras.
So kind of like how the Watchman movie missed the point of the book?
I was just about to comment about the Tetsuo reference. Say what you will about the album, but Billy did the research; that's an essential cyberpunk work, and not one many people in the West would be familiar with in the early 90's.
I caught that one too immediately. In certain circles Tetsuo wasn't that obscure, especially among fans of the subculture and late-eighties japanese sci-fi like Akira. I think it was part of the Tartan asian extreme series iirc. May have been the choice of the director of the music video and not Idol's himself. Afaik Brett Leonard directed it, who also made lawnmower man, virtuosity and Highlander:the source?!
So yeah, absolutely the kind of guy to miss the point entirely.
A recurring theme throughout the album seems to be how Idol looks at stuff like the LA race riots, seedy songs about doing drugs and general cyberpunk culture and merely approaches at the surface level the "energy" behind such imagery, constantly ignoring the deeper meaning and/or social malaise that informs such events.
... damn, that Michael Bay comparison Todd brings up is shockingly apt.
I found that movie hard to pay attention to SOLELY because it made ME want to make music videos all day
The album is "for" hackers. I was doing some "professional" hacking in the early '90s (for fun and profit) for clients and it spoke to me. Every track. I loved it. I'd play the whole album on repeat for 48 hours of constant computing work before I'd crash at "Mother Dawn", the last song on the album. It calls to the "Shadowrunner" genre as a punk version of Synth Wave. Billy's work here is ambitious enough, and the upbeat song of Heroin is about as ironic as you can get if you know him and his life story. You can turn your brain off and focus on the trance beat or intently listen to every lyric and inflection and double-entendre. When a hacker is too busy to listen to Rush, Iron Maiden, or early-era Queensryche or Dream Theater, Billy's there with this masterpiece.
This could be either 100% or 0% sarcastic and I'd buy it
@@roprope511 Yeah, the choice of those four lame bands at the end makes it hard to tell.
@@wintermute8315 Let people enjoy whatever music they like
@@3451FSSR I'm not stopping anyone from doing anything. Go enjoy your DragonForce.
@@wintermute8315 I’m sure you don’t think you are, but people probably won’t talk very openly about their tastes when you talk shit from the get-go. Assuming anybody would want to talk to you or vice-versa, Anyhow, I’m off to listen to the lamest shit ever.
What made this fall so perplexing was that Billy had sounded cyberpunkerish during the 80s. Many of his hits up to that point would not have sounded out of place on the soundtracks of Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, etc.
What makes it baffling is that Billy leans in to it to the point of bad fanfic. The lyrics arent really saying anything so your left with sad posing as a cyberpunk.
This album was so far ahead of its time that 30 years later people still don’t get it
There really isn't much to get. It's just tonedeaf and not very good.
20 years from now: “this album is so ahead of its time that 50 years later, people still don’t get it”
50 years from now: “this album is so ahead of its time that 80 years later, people still don’t get it”
150 years from now: “this album is so ahead of its time that 180 years later, people still don’t get it”
3,000 A.D.: “wow people STILL haven’t gotten it? They’ll get it eventually, I promise!!!”
500,000 A.D.: “dude, people will get it eventually, just trust me”
10 million AD: “uh guys?”
1 billion AD: “any day now”
10 billion AD: “almost there”
30 billion AD: “guys?”
40 billion AD: “uh”
Literal heat death of the universe: “okay, maybe Cyberpunk by Billy Idol wasn’t ahead of its time”
@@rashotcake6945 or it's just so far ahead of its time that it transcends the entire concept OF time
I think it’s pretty good
Ikr
you could say that Billy Idol was
a rebel just for kicks
and he was famous in 1986. probably a kid in 1966.
UwU
[Cue CSI theme]
"Cyberpunk started in the early 80s".. the ghost of Harlan Ellison will now start mailing you dead gophers.
The cut to "everybody dance now" really got me. Excellent work as always, Todd.
Oh man, if Martha Wash was a guest on this album, that would be something!
Lady Gaga recently tweeted "I don't remember ARTPOP" and I don't know what to do with that
Not sure why. I don't remember every drawing I ever did. If I did I would be too embarrassed to ever pick up a pencil again. And maybe the same applies here, to a likely lesser extent? Take the important lessons from the failure and move on, you only get one life to make the art you want to leave behind.
It was a problematic era for her, her record label didn’t help, it was too ambitious for the time I guess. A lot of scrapped collaborations and a second part that never happened. A very stressful era
I mean, that era was filled from the beginning with troubles, she broke her hip, got surgery, her label lost interest in her, her manager put her to the side while she recovered and once she was back the issues with the industry blew up, her label stopped financing the era, she fired her manager, everything about it was tons of distress for her. But I don't think that album qualifies for this show, it did sell tons and it has multiplatinum certifications, it did not kill her relevance since she had many different kind of comebacks with Cheek to Cheeks, her superbowl and A Star is Born and its reception has only gotten better with time with the public and the critics being kinder to it, the only reason people consider it a flop was because it did not sell as much as Born This Way (an album that sold numbers only Taylor Swift and Adele have been able to match) and because it lost the battle against Katy Perry's PRISM, which is funny because Witness actually totally qualifies for this show.
“Billy Idol covered The Velvet Underground” is a sentence I never thought I would hear. My life is worse now for having heard it.
On the plus side, I can imagine the conversation between Lou Reed and David Bowie when Lou learned about it.
Bowie has recorded the worst covers I’ve ever heard.
Ummm, China Girl? Cactus? Pablo Picasso? Night Flights? Do you even Bowie?
Benjamin K: I didn’t say that all his covers were bad. Besides “China Girl”, however, the covers you mentioned are atrocious. “It Ain’t Easy” & “Kingdom Come”, however, are excellent covers by Bowie.
Bob Smith Ok Morrissey
@@benkenon
That's not nice. Everyone knows Bob Smith hates Morrissey.
Cripes, "Adam in Chains" sounds SO MUCH like modern vaporwave.
I misheard it as Alice In Chains and was very confused
It totally is.
Sounds like Idol's own version of Duran Duran's "Come Undone" (which was from the same year and whose music video was also directed by Julien Temple).
Or a total rip-off of Duran Duran's "Come Undone"
Sounds like an Enigma song done wrong.
I have to agree, after listening to the album I just can't hate it. I feel like most trainwrecords are the result of artists buying their own hype, in a tumultuous time in the career, or kind of forced into into it for sales.
But Cyberpunk was none of those. You can tell Billy was trying something and trying to be ahead of his time. There's real artistic intent behind this. It feels like something he'd want to make regardless of where his career was at.
It's genuine, not pretensious, and doesn't have the disdain or rampant ego underlying so many of the albums covered on the show. Even the really idiotic idea of turning a song about heroin into a edm track, was what he really wanted to do.
Maybe I also have a soft spot for 90s cheese but I have a lot of respect for the attempt here even if it's not my cup of tea. But on the other hand it was also ahead of its time, the tech behind it and culture just wasn't there yet for this music to sound as good as it should.
I get why (and you'll see this in comments on videos from the album) a lot of people find it to be an underrated classic.
"That is an ugly-ass album cover."
Very true, and also, why do the greek letters beneath the title spell "Chpsberpink"?
Are we sure that isn't russian?
@@willowmcintire21 nah, it's Greek
some letters in Greek and Russian are similar
because there's a font that matches greek letters to latin ones on a keyboard, and the leftovers (c, y, q, etc.) get the leftover letters from the greek alphabet
@@adrenalinevan Thanks for explaining my year-old joke to me. That felt really necessary.
@@ospero7681 It was a joke? Well, thanks AdrenalineVan, from the rest of us, for actually answering the question.
You can't avoid Dog Police forever Todd!!!!
DOG PO-LICE! DOG PO-LICE!
Yes. I need to hear his full thoughts
I’ve looked into Dog Police so thoroughly at this point that I fear an OHW featuring anything short of Todd conducting a full-on interview with Tony Thomas won’t really be doing this historic act justice.
He can buy more time if he has an equally bizarre bit of Night Flight weirdness to show us,
I'm waiting on The Spaghetti Incident? myself.
Billy Idol writing a song about the LA riots while COMPLETELY missing the point of the LA riots is, like, the most Billy Idol thing ever. Billy was many things, but smart wasn't one of them. Neither was punk. Because watching the LA riots from your penthouse apartment while going, "Oh, look! Anarchy amongst the proletariat! How very droll! Perhaps I shall write a song about it!", is probably the least punk thing anyone has ever done.
That is the PERFECT description.
Positively smashing, chaps. I would join you in your revolt against "The Man", but I'm afraid I lack the complexion for car burning.
I agree it also was just in such poor taste. We have always have songs about or inspired by social and political movements, but this song was just not cool.
He didn't miss the point at all, I think YOU did. He can't help where he lived or what he had at that time in terms of material possessions. Had you really listened to the album you'd know race, police brutality, and economics are three of the main factors he talks about feeling in your mind, body, and soul..which is what the riots were about.
@@allybrosia3725 that song doesn't strike me as understanding the lack of fun or romance in social resistance. It's a filtering effect, and coming from a British guy who was watching from the hills, it's just not going to work.
The 90s and the 2000s both share the feature of not "truly" starting until September of their second year
I actually saw Billy Idol live a couple summers ago; it was at ribfest and unfortunately his voice has not aged well over the years, though it was still cool to see him live. Living Color however was fucking amazing and absolutely knocked that shit out of the park.
Interesting. I saw him maybe...four years ago and I thought his voice was great and still had a lot of depth and dexterity I guess. Maybe he had a great night when I saw him or maybe he had a poor night when you saw him.
I see Billy Idol watched Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Now I want to see the salaryman-metal fetishist hybrid run this dipshit over at high jumpcut speed...
It keeps blowing my mind that Smells like Teen Spirit came out THAT early in the decade. It feels like it should have come out in 1995 or 1996, but 1991????? Weird, man. WEIRD.
@dayzgone Its an oversimplification to say he hated the song. It's more that he resented the negatives that came when that song blew up. The way it pigeonholed Nirvana, the mainstream crowds and pop superstardom it brought to their previously intentionall raw and niche band, the way it got played to death and non-fans would always beg and demand they continue to play the song, etc. He liked to imagine himself as part of a countercultural and anti rock establishment musical scene, but his band helped make it the exact opposite of that and turned it into the next big popular rock fad.
He sort of stumbled into that level of stardom and relevancy and he absolutely resented it and felt out of place. He didn't intend to be a part of that whole scene. Ultimately the root of all his issues were his own internal struggles with mental illness and addiction. It's all romanticized now but at the end of the day he was a suffering, drugged addicted person who got thrown into the limelight and that basically prevented him from getting his life together.
It sounds 1991, More Than a Feeling sounds 70s, it's not like Nirvana really were ahead of their time, they were just popular
I call it time travel
I always laugh when I hear that Kurt Cobain was somehow dragged kicking and screaming to superstardom. Come on. Let’s not make the guy into some kind of martyr of the rockstar lifestyle. He’s the one who voluntarily wrote and recorded Nevermind and then signed with DGC and cashed those million dollar checks. Then it was all “oh man I really hate all this attention. Gee I wish this hadn’t happened to me”. Give me a break. Kurt Cobain was an addict in a toxic marriage with another addict. THAT was his downfall. Not all those adoring fans who would have given him $50 for farting into a jar and twisting the lid on real fast.
It still feels very modern
"Why does he look like Gary Busey wearing a Bart Simpson wig all of a sudden?"
Haha. Best part.
I feel like one of the biggest things holding this album back is that it just doesn't have enough of an edge to it for something calling itself Cyberpunk. I really want to love Shock to the System, it's a great title, and most of the parts are good, but it just feels a little too soft. Especially given the very real and serious subject matter it draws on. I would love to hear a rougher, more punk-rock cover of it that gives it the edge it needs.
Precisely!
Yeah I googled into this apparently what actually killed his career was what happened shortly after the albums release, namely a near fatal drug overdose that led him to leave the industry to reassess his life and to be a ‘family man’.
So not really a career killer more of a last album before basically retiring for a decade. I mean given the deaths from drug overdoses in the music industry after that point, can you blame him.
He's admitted that he was "burnt the fuck out" and wanted time away so he made this album with the specific intent of it being a failure so he could go do something else for a few years.
@@Hammerhead547 "I meant it to be a failure" sounds like a pretty lame cop out, but yeah everything I've read suggests that he probably would have gone on hiatus after touring for this album regardless of how big it was.
@@ordinarychef The thing is though, there are plenty of albums that artists have either released or submitted to the label that where intentionally bad, and they tend to fall under three categories, they are either outtakes of older stuff that didn't make the cut, they are REALLY experimental, or they are just horrifyingly bad and/or offensive. This album is none of those things. I think that's just something he made up after the fact to reconcile the critical and fan backlash.
Well, he bailed just in the kick of time.
Here's the thing, though. Billy Idol was already pretty much a has-been by the end of 1990. I remember paying $5 to see him perform at the Arizona State Fair in '90. Other featured performers that year included over-the-hill acts such as the Oak Ridge Boys and the Temptations.
He really did come across like an old guy losing his grip, "trying to fit in" with the younger people that weren't even looking in his direction.
@The Duke the album
It’s pretty incredible how Janelle Monane manages to make this exact same idea really cool
The same? Exactly the same? Have you actually listened to Janelle Monane???
@@MalachiTheBowlingGodare we all spelling her name wrong or is this someone different?
Idk I think she's doing a more neo-afrofuturism thing
I was dying when "Everybody dance now!" came on.
It's goofy as hell, but respect to the costuming, that's genuinely pretty fun looking, if dated.
3:19 How is a STILL IMAGE giving me a seizure?!?!
"Then there's the review from Entertainment Weekly, which was merely a two-word review. It just said, 'Cyber Junk.' "
This album's greatest crime was poor timing, it's far from unlistenable, 5 years earlier it would have sold droves.
Todd in the ShadowPUNK 2077
cartmann94 I was thinking more Todd in the Shadowrun, but yea.
Probably would come out sooner than Cyberpunk 2077
As someone that came of age in the early 90s I appreciate you understanding and letting everyone know that the first couple years of the 90s were really the end of the 80s!
Much as the first year or so of the '80s was really the end of the 70s, etc; hell, even the way the *calendars* are read marks the 80s as 1981-1990 :)
Doesn't that happen to every decade? The 60s kinda ended with the end of Vietnam and the whole final flowering of the psychedelic baby boomer culture. The 70s really ended in 1982 once disco was completely gone from the mainstream, and new wave, Michael Jackson's Thriller and hard rock/heavy metal penetrated the mainstream. The 80s ended really by the end of 1992, since all the hair bands and most of the 80s acts were gone from the mainstream and grunge, gangsta rap, R&B and alternative rock were the big things. Most people say the 90s ended with 9/11.
This decade culturally will probably end in 2022, and the new style supplants it.
If you're gonna get technical: disco ended in *1984* The 80s were officially done by '93, and '90s ended around 2008, as far as I was concerned.
Making it dated in Vice City Stories....take that Rockstar.
@@rockingbirdey I feel like you can divide a lot of post-WWII decades into halves, if not more parts. Like the early 60s is mod fashion in the UK and surf music in the US, but the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion don't really kick off until the middle of the decade, and the hippie and psychedelia scenes don't penetrate the mainsteam until around 1967/68. The early 70s is the era of the big arena rock bands like Zeppelin and such, and prog rock (which most rock critics like to pretend didn't happen), then disco, then punk, while the music historians try to pretend that the biggest singles of the decade weren't all AM soft-rock.
The early 80s is New Wave, New Wave of British Heavy Metal and similar "scary" occult-themed metal in the US. But other than the early successes of Van Halen and Motley Crue, hair metal isn't really a thing until 1986, and neither are the teeny bopper pop artists like Tiffany and Debbie Gibson--which is also when the usual fashions we associate with the 80s happened--yeah, New Wave artists got theatrical in their stage costumes, but their fans didn't so much. And then the early 90s was grunge and gangsta rap and more mature pop music like Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson, while the second half of the 90s is more pop-punk, teen-oriented pop and boybands, gangsta rap goes glam, etc.
Billy Idol can finally rest in peace knowing its not the biggest trainwreck in history to have the name "Cyberpunk" on it. He can thank his unexpected Polish saviors.
Polish Saviors would be a great name for a Polish metal band.
Billy Idol is still alive….
Eh, the patches have probably put this album back at "biggest trainwreck called 'Cyberpunk'"
Lmao 😂😂
After 30 years, this album is a brief footnote for him on an otherwise illustrious career the decade prior.
I’d listen to a RATM song about robotic Billy Idol fighting cyber cops
If Billy Idol is the Perry Como of punk, aren't the Sex Pistols the Monkees?
"The Monkee with a Sex Pistol" That's a weird name for a band, eh?
@@ZoanBlade90 Or a porno.
Sex Pistols are the perfect sell out punk. Punk was always gonna be tha. The only real band is Laibach.
@@apanapandottir205 ... which are industrial, and not punk. Great band though
@@user-lc8fn5tc7w No shit lol
"I'm the new romancer"
That's actually a pretty good pun.
I misread this title as “Billy Joel” and boy howdy was I ready to hear all about the Piano Man’s foray into sci-fi worldbuilding
This album is actually really popular with fans of the cyberpunk genre. Said fandom is unfortunately not known for good taste so much as for an obsession with neon and chrome.
How about doing "Summer of Paradise" by the Beach Boys? You know, the album without Brian Wilson that barely sold 1,000 copies and is considered to be one of the worst albums of all time.
The other day I was thinking if he should talk about "Pet Sounds" or "Summer In Paradise", even if PS is considered one of the best albums of all time
He uploaded it today
Your wish is granted
Congrats you now have your video
The TDS is strong on the video, but he enumerates why it’s so bad.
That took me way longer than it should have to realize this wasn't the Piano Man
How does one confuse a White Englishman with 4 Korean Women? (That's a Mamamoo reference by the way.)
90s Billy Idol could genuinely be a Cyberpunk character in a Harlan Ellison short story and it would work very well.
To those who know, you know that, however, isn't a compliment.
"If Rage Against The Machine wrote a song about the LA riots..."
Todd, allow me to introduce you to Killing In The Name. Have you met?
Or the entire album called "The Battle of Los Angeles"
@Neil Breen Don't be like that todd is only a person not Wikipedia you can't expect him to know everything
@@AnArchyRulzz was that when the aliens invaded
@Neil Breen thank you for your comment, Director of Fateful Findings, Neil Breen.
Its been 5 years and Todd is still referencing Applause
What else left?
It would be freaking awesome if Todd in the Shadowd made a segment about "History of Music" where he talks about big or little known bands or solo singers. I mostly watch Todd to learn about music in an entertaining way. An entire segment about that would be awesome. Trainwreckords is close, and I do enjoy it a lot, but I would like to know the general history of music
I am starting to love his retrospective analyses to his current pop music reviews.
Billy's biggest contribution to the 90's was his cameo in the Wedding Singer
Honestly, aside from the fact that Idol was a big star, I think SoundCloud Rap is an apt comparison. It's music that's purportedly rebellious but is ultimately too focused on glam to ever actually say anything about the status quo.
So basically he was trying to be Scandroid or one of those Retrowave/Cyberpower musicians... but back in the 90's *before* it was retro? Fuck, now I'm actually mad that this album's so bad, because it could have been _so cool!_
No, it would not have been cool. The album Cyberpunk is superficial and names drops things but lacks an understanding of the referenced material and is completely lacking in self-awareness.
@@MrPoogly Well doy, that's what they're saying. It could've been cool if it wasn't done in such a shallow way.
@@MrPoogly Given how a lot of cyberpunk is all about style over substance, an argument could be made that the superficial nature of this album is hyper-aware.
The "I'm a Neuromancer" line was absolute cringe. However, the album concept was ahead of it's time. Reminds me of those electronic zines that came on cd-roms like Blender.
@@alanjervis9022 that's only really the bad cyberpunk written by people who don't know what they're talking about- to the point there's not really much "punk" about it. that sort of thing i just call cyber.
there's a lot of really good cyberpunk, and most of it is written by some kind of minority. they tend to explore themes of oppression, poverty and inequality. you're not really gonna get good explorations of those themes from allistic, able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual white dudes.
i would suggest some authors but i can't think of any off the top of my head right now because it's late and i'm tired.
Billy Idol doing a techno version of “Heroin” reminds me of when the Scissor Sisters did a disco version of “Comfortably Numb,” But at least their cover still kind of fit the lyrics. Billy just sounds like he’s doing a cold read over a totally different tune.
I had this album. I also wore out my "best of" Velvet Underground album. I do not recall ever hearing his version of Heroin.
I feel like Scissor Sisters have enough self awareness about it though. I'm sure they knew how dissonant it would be when they covered it. Whereas I don't think Billy Idol has any self awareness at all.
@@CylindricalWhistle That's what I meant. Their's was a reimagining. Billy's was more like a half-thought.
@@gabe_s_videos I honestly like Billy's version. It feels less desperate and sad, and much more cynical. Like a self loathing addict that uses sarcasm to cope, talking about how the had the idea to kill themselves and treating it with the same weight as a career shift. It feels spiteful. The way the song builds and builds, getting faster and more chaotic, different sources playing over each other like a radio. As the noise starts to get unbearable, ". . . And I'm closing in on death. . . Herrrrroin. . ." Then a dead stop. Almost like an od.
For Billy Idol fans such as me, this album was one hell of a shock to the system.
And this year we will have Cyberpunk 2077 and suddenly this album aged like a ridiculously fine wine.
Cyberpunk is a trainwreck aswell. How fitting.
Unlike this comment.
Me thinking about Edgerunners: You were sayin'?
Todd in the Shadows, the very best Music teacher.
19:11
I’m too high for my shirt
Too high for my shirt
So high it hurts
4:40 "there are no billy idol rip offs or wanna be's".
There is a man in Brazil trying to be Billy Idol since he 1st come out. His name is Supla and believe it or not he is still trying.
Tá tudo dominado, dominado caralho
Can confirm
Supla >>> Billy Idol
"More Human than Human" Is literally from Bladerunner, and Head Like a Hole's music video was human skulls laced with mechanical pieces. Industrial is cyberpunk as HELL
In the 80s, my mom was the delightful mix of punk and folk. She also loved Billy Idol, and I think it fits the aesthetic
13:50 Billy Idol officially started Vaporwave with that track
"The rioters weren't blasting Billy Idol"
In San Andreas they were!
Really?
White Wedding was on K-DST
@@hallamhal Neat!
This was actually a good evolution for him. If he tried to do grunge, it would have failed. He just did something that was a bit ambitious for the early 90s
I think his Cyberpunk record is an underrated cult classic. Then again, I love cyberpunk, vaporwave, retro futurism etc. in general.
And -nowadays at least- there is a "cyber punk rock" , I mean look at anything from Death Grips to obscure acts of the late 2010s, like Glamour for Better. Plus, there was this whole niche genre called electro-punk at some point (I don't know if it's still a thing).
Sounds very mid 90's The Prodigy. Cyberpunk is very under rated, brilliantly different from his 80's work. Then 2005 brought us Devil's Playground, amazing. Billy Idol is a genius.
@@Tbirdtrav71 He's an icon
I actually REALLY love how that Heroin cover sounds...I would just love if it wasn't a cover of Heroin.
3:24 I just noticed the Greek letters, and they're hilarious.
Hey mommy, I'm listening to some Chpsberpynk!
Todd has a great deep, gravelly voice. I can imagine him singing rock really well.
I don't know if this is terrible music, but it's definitely terrible cyberpunk. Idol looks like he only understands the glossy veneer of the genre and not the darkness and vulnerability at the heart of the best cyberpunk. Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell raise difficult questions about identity and what it means to be human in a world of advanced AI. That's what this genre is to me- the juxtaposition of flash and glamor with emptiness and yearning. Billy Idol does not understand that in the least.
Of it helps he really didn't get the whole punk thing either and he was in the original gang that would fallow the sex pistols around in late '75-'76.
@MrNorthernSol but even he would pose posthumanist questions in his books. I think it's in Count Zero where there's an AI who's writing a novel that loops onto itself and thus the AI never ends writing it, which is a brilliant way of poniting out how weird and alien tue AI will be to us
The next one you should do is Alanis Morissette's second album, "Now Is The Time". It flopped so hard, it led her to changing from a teen pop idol to a "serious" artist with "Jagged Little Pill".
@@soaribb32 Her self titled debut went Platinum in the Great White North and scored her a Juno (Canada's version of the Grammys) for "Best New Artist". NITT only sold half of that her debut did, and her two record deal wasn't renewed.
"Never too hot! Never too cold!" lol
The example you are using is like the reverse of this section, because she got famous after failing. Liz Phair on the other hand...
But this series is about albums that flopped so badly that the artist would never return to the glory.
What about her 1998 album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie? The one where she stripped to her undies and started thanking everyone.
To be honest, this album doesn't sound like it would be that bad. Even the out of genre cover of heroin doesn't sound THAT bad.
"Adam in Chains"
Surprised Todd didn't make an Alice in Chains joke
Todd: "there is no cyber punk rock."
Death Grips: "bet"
The new Machine Girl album "The Ugly Art" is also excellent
I’m pretty sure that’s rap...
I wouldn’t describe them as cyber punk at all...
I think the closest think to cyber punk would be early electro-industrial groups like Nitzer Ebb, Skinny Puppy, and Front 242.
@@tjenadonn6158 atari teenage riot
>Saw notification
>Thought it said “Cyberpunk” by Billy Joel
>Was very confused
>Created titles:
Only the Good Die Without Being Uploaded from Their Pathetic Fleshsacks
Scenes from a Virtual-Reality Restaurant
Synthesizer Man
Now I'm just waiting for his Trainwreckords of Billy Joel
She's Always a Cyborg to Me.
Play us a Sine you're the Synth Man,
Play us a Sine tonight
that's exactly what i thought lmao
Upload Girl
Adam in chains is a badass song title, not gonna lie
I totally agree with pretty much everything said in this video but you only have to go as far Wikipedia to see that Billy was lead singer of the band 'Generation X' from 1970. He was one of the original punks and I think that's relevant to the context of this vid.
Billy Idol trying to be Nine Inch Nails and RATM, what could go wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised if Billy Idol had no idea who that was and just kinda stumbled on this mess by himself in some drug induced stupor
i get distinct shades of rob zombie too but it may have been a bit early for that
@@sillygoose420 White Zombie was just starting to become known at the time, but yeah I think he was probably influenced more by EBM and other club music that was going on at the time than any pop stuff.
@@yallevereatenbeans2723 Billy actually made this album after almost dying of an overdose and rethinking his career
[in a Bubsy voice] What could possibly go wrong?
Isn't Katy Perry already over? Because last I heard she didn't have any hits and she was judging on reality shows and we all know the judging desk at American Idol is the pop star retirement home. He's an idea for a show "Is it dead yet?"
Didn't have any hits? What was "Chained to the Rhythm", a figment of my imagination? Besides, people thought Lady Gaga was over after people erroneously declared ARTPOP to be a "flop", and look where she is now. Don't count anyone out prematurely.
@@gracecarpinter8623 Doesn't Todd literally address the difference between a Perry flop and a Gaga flop in this video, though? The question is, can Katy Perry muster the public goodwill to make a comeback if she has one bad year?
I guess she is never really over....
I can't imagine Todd would do that, given how bad he admits to being at predicting who can make a comeback vs who stays dead after a flop. If I'm remembering right, weren't there like a bunch of people on his "Top 10 Worst" lists back in 2010-2012 who managed to stay around for the pretty much the whole decade?
Perrys best days are behind her. Also she's kind of nuts
It's funny, the Greek on the album cover literally reads "hpsverpink"
I think it's both mildly entertaining and frustrating when people misinterpret the Greek language in ways such as this
Hey what a coincidence that this appeared again in my recommendations at this current time
Which is the bigger disaster this album or the game? 😝