THE HARD STUFF REISSUES
Rebel Yell – 40th Anniversary Deluxe Expanded Edition UME
An 80s hard rock pinnacle, now with extras.
It would not be unreasonable to suggest that Billy Idol’s career has not panned out exactly as it might have done.
When his Rebel Yell album was first released, in November 1983, the former Generation X frontman’s transformation into the ultimate MTV-generation rock star seemed complete. With what was then a state-of-the-art production job, the mercurial talents of guitarist Steve Stevens (still at Idol’s side today) and some genuinely terrific rock’n’roll songs, it could hardly fail. World domination beckoned. Unfortunately, Idol never quite matched that second solo album’s brash magic, and by the 90s his productivity and reputation were in decline. The peroxide hair, the sneer and the leather trousers have remained unerringly iconic, and later studio records like Devil’s Playground and Kings And Queens Of The Underground proved that the old sod has still got it, but Rebel Yell will always be the most Billy Idol of Billy Idol moments. And it still sounds phenomenal.
Recorded in New York City, it’s a high-resolution barrage of concrete, chrome and neon, with Idol an untamed, preening presence in the foreground. Everyone knows the hits – Rebel Yell, Eyes Without A Face, the actually quite rude Flesh For Fantasy – but the supporting cast are all heavy hitters too: Daytime Drama is a masterfully tense radio-rock slow burner that bears a striking resemblance to what INXS were doing a few years later; Blue Highway is a gritty no-nonsense rocker that genuinely seems to be about travelling on a blue highway; and the frantic New York rumble of (Do Not) Stand In The Shadows is a classy punk throwback. Meanwhile, austere, quasi-gothic finale The Dead Next Door is inexplicably moving for a song that shares vinyl space with Flesh For ruddy Fantasy.
As devoted Idolators will rightly be expecting, this 40th Anniversary Deluxe Expanded Edition comes with a generous helping of bonus content. Of the two “bonus tracks”, the cloying, overproduced Best Way Out Of Here is best ignored, but Idol’s version of Rose Royce’s 70s hit Love Don’t Live Here Anymore is magnificently overwrought, and definitely better than Jimmy Nail’s. Several pre-album demos serve largely to confirm that Idol and Stevens had their shit together in advance, but a charmless, early version of Flesh For Fantasy is so unlike its hit counterpart that you can almost hear it whistling towards the bin. It all turned out well, however, and Rebel Yell is back for more (more, more).
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Pink Floyd
The Floyd’s epic social satire remixed.
It’s one of rock history’s greatest ironies that some of the prog dinosaurs that punk was out to destroy went significantly more noisy and anti-establi
