Billy Idol

Billy Idol was born William Broad in 1955 and came up through the London punk scene. In 1976 he joined Chelsea as a guitarist, bailed within a few weeks and started Generation X with his Chelsea bandmate Tony James, stepping out front as the singer. Generation X made three albums for Chrysalis and had their share of British success before falling apart, and in 1981 Idol moved to New York to go it alone, teaming up with guitarist Steve Stevens.

That partnership was the whole trick. Idol kept the punk attitude, added a dance-floor pulse, and let Stevens loose with guitar parts that sounded flashy, futuristic and a little bit dangerous. The Don't Stop EP arrived in 1981, the self-titled debut album in 1982, and the videos for "Dancing with Myself" and "White Wedding" made him a fixture on the newborn MTV, where he became one of the faces of the second British Invasion.

Rebel Yell, in 1983, was the knockout. The title track is a whooping, fist-in-the-air blast of hard rock, and "Eyes Without a Face" turns it all inside out, a moody ballad that lets the menace simmer instead of boil. The album went double platinum in America. Whiplash Smile followed in 1986 and Charmed Life in 1990, and the songs kept coming in between, from the slinky "Flesh for Fantasy" to "To Be a Lover" and "Cradle of Love". The Grammys nominated him for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance 3 times.

A motorcycle crash in 1990 left him with a broken leg, and after the 1993 concept album Cyberpunk he spent the back half of the '90s away from the spotlight. The comeback came with Devil's Playground in 2005 and Kings & Queens of the Underground in 2014. He picked up a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023, and in 2026 he and Stevens went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together, which seems only fair.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.