On The Fence: Rebel Yell

Rebel Yell is an album that baffles me. Some of it sounds great, some of it sounds cheesy. Sometimes the great songs sound cheesy, and sometimes the cheesy songs sound great. Steve Stevens’ guitar was an 80’s benchmark, but is that a good thing? Aside from Aerosmith, nobody mined pop/metal like Billy Idol, but again, is this an achievement worth praising? As usual, the answer probably depends on what year you graduated from high school multiplied by how many beers you’ve consumed.

When I find myself staring blankly at an album cover with a big cartoon question mark over my head, I’m inclined to turn the discussion over to the readership and see what happens. With a rebel yell, he cried more, more, more…

THUMBS UP: Rebel Yell featured a number of hits, including the title track, ‘Flesh For Fantasy’ and ‘Eyes Without A Face’. But it’s the lesser known gems that really make this an album worth owning: ‘Blue Highway’ is the best song here, and the better-built twin of ‘Rebel Yell’. ‘The Dead Next Door’ is a mournful dirge unlike anything else in Idol’s repetoire. Steve Stevens’ guitar licks sound pretty dated, but dude could shred. On even the most cliched numbers here, his guitar work stands out. And while Billy Idol’s sneer is a first class postage stamp to the MTV of the Reagan years, he could sing a bit. ‘Catch My Fall’ is pure 80’s gold: driving synthesizer, obligatory saxophones, faux empowerment, catchy as hell. In a nutshell, much of what makes Billy Idol enjoyable for me.

THUMBS DOWN: Billy Idol is pretty cool, but Rebel Yell is a roller coaster ride of epic proportions. Do three or four really good songs make the rest of an album worth owning? And is this even a conversation in the era of iTunes and take-only-what-you-like MP3 players? It’s telling that there is no lyric sheet attached to this album – I believe that most of the words here are some brand of rhyming gibberish (punctuated by a fist pump every verse or so). Here’s a tasty snippet from ‘Crank Call’: “They want love they want a pantomime/To cut you in two that’s a sexual crime/They dig the dirt they deal in/They dig the dirt they feed on.” I’m not looking to Billy Idol for poetry, but it illustrates the essential problem with this album: the more attention you pay, the less interesting it gets.

[I defy you to not have an opinion about Billy Idol - it's not possible. C'mon now...]

Tags: Billy Idol, Rebel Yell