"REBEL YELL" BILLY IDOL (1983)

This month on Twitter, @sotachetan hosts #BrandedInSongs – which is a head-on collision of my personal world of music and my professional world of branding and advertising. The challenge is to simply pick a song with a brand name in its lyrics or title. I added one more criteria to my picks, which is this: the songs themselves must be as iconic as the brands they mention. No filler here.

Time keeps ticking. Years go by. Yet, an eighties hard rock / new wave blend icon like Billy Idol has managed to stay relevant and evolve. Last year, he and longtime collaborator Steve Stevens did a live performance of “Eyes Without A Face” for SiriusXM. The rendition was priceless and has garnered millions of views. Stripped down and reworked with a little flamenco flair, somehow the song was still 100% Billy Idol. Few artists have been able to pull off that level of staying power. Still, Billy’s reign of the eighties is what matters most. And “Rebel Yell” might be the epitome of that era.

The Billy Idol snarl and howl is ever present on this title track. The Billy Idol blend of hard rock and new wave is also ever present – from the monster guitar riffs that turbo-charge the verses and chorus to the synth accents that occupy the treble range. “Rebel Yell” is a clinic on doing it the Billy Idol way. It’s a powerful reminder that he wasn’t just a fixture on the eighties music scene. In many ways, he also helped shape it.

“I live in my own heaven. I collect it to go at the 7-11.”

"EYES WITHOUT A FACE" BILLY IDOL (1983)

I generally gravitate to the music first before the lyrics. But as a writer, I still marvel at well-spun verses and choruses. This month, I’m joining the music Twitter community in #SeptSongLyricChallenge

Day 17

Part English, part French, Billy Idol and his longtime collaborator Steve Stevens wrote one for the ages in 1983. “Eyes Without A Face” is a ballad that rises in tension from the first verse to the second verse into the bridge, where the song’s delicate demeanor explodes into something a bit more, well, Billy Idol. The guitar hook and Idol’s snarl return to remind us Billy is still Billy. All is well. He and Stevens just needed to slow down the RPMs a bit to let the melody, arrangements and Perri Lister’s backing vocals take the spotlight even it was just for a few minutes. And, boy, were they absolutely worth it.

“I spend so much time believing all the lies, to keep the dream alive.”

"EYES WITHOUT A FACE" BILLY IDOL (1983)

It’s time to get back to my favorite decade. For the month of March, I’ll be looking back at some of my favorite jams from the 80s. These songs often came to me via MTV or the radio. NYC-area stations WDRE, WPLJ, WNEW, K-ROCK and Z100 introduced me to everything from irresistible pop confections to under-the-radar post-punk anthems. I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for the 80s. It was the decade when I discovered music can be a truly powerful thing. #31DaysOf80sSongs

You cannot deny the power of the ballad during the eighties. It was just as much a part of the era as hair metal, synth pop and sax solos. This past month, I’ve had a ball featuring a different song each day from this era on Mental Jukebox. And I’ve given some thought to the question: what is the greatest ballad of the 80’s? I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t one that rises above the rest. But there are several that probably deserve to be recognized, including The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”, U2’s “With Or Without You”, Prince’s “Purple Rain” and the subject of this post: Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without A Face”.

Idol isn’t the type of artist you would first associate with ballads. He didn’t make many of them. But he and his longtime collaborator Steve Stevens wrote one for the ages in 1983. “Eyes Without A Face” is a ballad that rises in tension from the first verse to the second verse into the bridge, where the song’s delicate demeanor explodes into something a bit more, well, Billy Idol. The guitar hook and Idol’s snarl return to remind us Billy is still Billy. All is well. He and Stevens just needed to slow down the RPMs a bit to let the melody, arrangements and Perri Lister’s backing vocals take the spotlight even it was just for a few minutes. And, boy, were they absolutely worth it.

“I'm all out of hope. One more bad break could bring a fall.”

"REBEL YELL" BILLY IDOL (1983)

Inspired by Albumism, I’m doing my own version of Flying Solo with individual tracks. Band breakups and hiatuses are never fun, but these solo jams were defining moments in my life’s soundtrack.

Before and after Billy Idol, there was nothing else like him. With Rebel Yell, he fused together two genres that almost had no business being on the same track together: hard rock and new wave. On their own, these genres stood in opposition to one another. But on Idol’s second solo album — and with his title track , in particular — they came together like long lost souls.

“Rebel Yell” laid the groundwork for other bands that also brought elements of these two divergent music styles together, most notably The Cult and INXS. Two likable genres often enjoyed on their own — but not often together. That’s the simple genius of Billy Idol. Every bit a rebel in both his persona and in his music, but equally relatable and likable with the masses.

“He lives in his own heaven.”

"EYES WITHOUT A FACE" BILLY IDOL (1983)

One of the most memorable ballads from a decade full of ballads belongs to this new wave, punk rocker. Billy Idol slowed down the RPMs considerably on this one and stepped over the banal adult contemporary radio darlings in the process. “Eyes Without a Face” was a far cry from “White Wedding”, “Dancing with Myself” and “Rebel Yell” for sure. But it didn’t put you to sleep either, revving up with a Billy Idol-inspired guitar solo halfway through the song.

“I spend so much time believing all the lies. To keep the dream alive.”