Billy Idol - Cyberpunk (90's Era)

Billy Idol Cyberpunk 1993

An album full of promise, and ideas, I felt somewhere Cyberpunk's execution wasn't as fleshed out, but I feel as though the overall aspect of this record was forward thinking in its approach, as it was something of a discussion piece to a very trying early 90's, while giving as much creativity to the artist.

A very pronounce construction of the 90's idiom, the Internet, and  the cyberpunk culture coined by William Gibson, and the new age/Sci-Fi element that Billy Idol's Cyberpunk evokes was overlooked because of Billy Idol's cartoony behavior. Having said that, I looked passed his bizarre proclivities and peaked into, through, and underneath the volatile just enough to see where the purpose of Cyberpunk resided.

Cyberpunk was at that time ahead of the curve, using the web as a means to transmit information. Expanding on the song lyrics, and artwork, whilst giving a way for fans to converse. We take for granted in today's apparatus, but at that time it was new. There wasn't a competing element when the network began whereas today it is ubiquitous and it has become more controlled, and there are many competing interests molding what will shape the 21st century paradigm.

Though many of the lyrics tend to be on a new age, sci-fi, and observational side, there is a feel that I think resonates very well in its eccentricities. Melding Indian rhythms, gospel, funk, electronic, and rock into a album I think gave good variation.

I keep coming back to both Under Midnight's Void, and Billy Idol's Cyberpunk because these records posit a discussion about technology, how it is used, and what gains in which propels or hinders a society with technology.

Analyzing this album as it is crossing the twenty year mark, is still largely hated, and despised record by many. I've had an open affinity to this because I wasn't thrust into the lore of early Billy Idol. My curiosity lay in how Cyberpunk spoke with it's expression, tonality, and melancholy. If nothing else, I felt it could have been about our place, age and the patterns crisscrossing across wide areas of time.

For example: The Berlin Wall, China's Tienanmen Square incident, Sam Kinison's death, the L.A. Riots, all of these could be muses in the creation of Cyberpunk. Constructed in 1993, I believe feels very disorienting, and has this underlying judgement based on its criteria its expressing. A good portion of the record needed better execution with a lot less of the implied innuendo, and more on the concept it needed to elicit. I thought it wasn't as focused, but again, it is creative license to interpret what one aims to achieve.

As with many things, history tends to give great abhorrence, and complete indifference to the human condition, whereas I think Cyberpunk's music tried to break this boundary by giving a very curt and beautiful expression which I think got passed over because of its myriad directions of giving hope to a hopeless time.

Though Billy Idol wouldn't record another album in twelve years (2005), this record is a testament of its ardent strength, strange character, and ingenuity in which we don't see these days. Thanks for reading.

B.