“Then the Night Comes,” like “Shock the System,” was close to what I was used to with just a few electronic additions. Looking back, there’s more Idol on this record than I gave credit for at the time. But I revisited it years later and discovered that, with age for both myself and Cyberpunk, I enjoyed it far more. Everything else seemed so mellow and trippy in comparison to those three songs. And I loved it – despite an electronic beat that, as a metal guy in my early 20s, I absolutely hated on anything else. If you need to get pumped for something, this song is a great choice. “Power Junkie,” on the other hand, is all pumping adrenaline, from the opening sample of Muhammad Ali telling the world he’s a bad man through to Billy Idol screaming that same quote in his own way on the chorus.
The song still gets me every time and it’s a staple in my writing soundtracks. It put me in the middle of a Mad Max-type future, that lone rebellious bastion of hope. I absolutely loved the post-apocalyptic feel of the song. The two standout songs for the younger me were album opener “Wasteland” and the cocky and energetic “Power Junkie.” The former gave me very high hopes for Cyberpunk on first listen. In 1993, with the exception of a couple of songs, I thought it deserved the bargain bin treatment – or perhaps the garbage bin treatment. In fact, I didn’t always have the opinion of the record that I do now. I get why fans were stunned by the rest of the album. The electronics are there, but it’s a raging rock tune that’s not far off the mark. He introduced the idea of his electronic evolution slowly with the single “Shock the System,” which is probably the nearest thing to a classic Billy Idol tune on this record. In fact, it has a couple of my favorite Billy Idol songs on it. The album is mostly forgotten now, but I believe it’s gotten a bad rap. Cyberpunk landed in the discount bin within months of its release, and it would be more than a decade before we’d hear new music from the rocker. Instead, it almost ended Billy Idol’s career. Idol made a name in the 1980s with punk-influenced hard rock, but in 1993, he threw fans quite a curve ball with an electronics-laden concept album about the dark side of technology.
Billy idol albums series#
Billy Idol is the first artist in this series that probably doesn’t strictly qualify as “metal,” but 1993’s Cyberpunk definitely meets the other qualifications – and there’s a lot of crossover with the metal crowd.
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