This week I finally finished reading Billy Idol’s book, “Dancing With Myself”. I have been a fan of his music for a long time. I’ve listened to his music and watched all of his videos on MTV back in my high school years. Like most, I always thought the dude was badass. The spike blond hair, the famous lip curl that he does and he also has one of the coolest singing voices in rock. Billy Idol started out playing punk music with Generation X but when he went solo he decided to take his music to a different turn by playing dance-rock music. Play rock music that you can dance to with songs like “Rebel Yell”, “Dancing With Myself”, “White Wedding” and many others. Even if you never bought his albums, I’m sure everyone have seen a video of his on MTV and heard a song of his on the radio. This guy is everywhere and he continues to be everywhere in the music industry today.

This was a very interesting book. It tells the story that goes from his childhood to today. Even though he had a difficult and challenging life growing up, he was still able to make his dreams come true by becoming a big rock star. Like most rock stars, he too went through an addiction with drugs, alcohol and sex. While he did have a lot of crazy and funny stories to tell, I was most interested in the punk music scene. Yeah, he talked a lot about the punk rock scene which was interesting stuff. I loved all the punk stories he told.

He also talked about the failure of his controversial “Cyberpunk” album, which after the release of that album… he took a long hiatus from the music business. I remember that too. I remember buying that “Cyberpunk” album when it came out on CD back in 1993. I don’t have it anymore, though because I think I got rid of that album and I regret getting rid of it ’cause I thought that was a great album even if the critical reception wasn’t very well received for that album. I thought the album was different and respected Billy Idol for doing something risky. I wanna get that album back somehow but it’s not even available in Itunes. I could probably get it from Amazon though.

One thing, though, I thought it was interesting that Billy Idol was almost hired for the T-1000 role for the film, “Terminator 2: Judgement Day”. It’s true. Billy talked about auditioning for the role with James Cameron for the film. James really liked Billy as the T-1000 but Billy couldn’t get the role ’cause of his motorcycle accident he had. I remembered a lot of stuff he talked about in the book but a few new things I learned and Billy almost landing a role in “T-2: Judgement Day” was new to me, WOW!

You should give this book a read if you’re a fan of Billy Idol’s music like me. As you can tell, I’ve been a fan of rock n’ roll music my whole life, ever since I was a kid and I used to idolize Billy Idol and still do today. After reading this book, I’ll probably get his new album, “Kings and Queens of the Underground”. I’ll get that album this week probably.

Billy Idol is one guy who totally deserves to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and it’s amazing he hasn’t been considered yet. This guy had a big hand in changing the music industry. He was also one of the first artists to help launch MTV. He was very important to MTV and he helped MTV take the world by storm with his videos. That was back in the day when MTV was a “music” station.

This book is a great read. It was easy to read and pretty quick. I couldn’t put it down and you’ll be addicted once you start reading the first page. I’m glad Billy Idol finally did his memoir.

Kev