The future has imploded into the present
- from the album’s Intro, track #1
When I first heard Billy Idol’s ‘Cyberpunk’, I was on a bus, heading home from high school. It was 1993, and I was a fifteen year-old obsessed with Kiss, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, and Dungeons & Dragons. My musical preferences were rooted in passing trends from the 1980s, while Nirvana and Pearl Jam ruled the rock airwaves. I was more interested in fantasy than the future, if you can believe that.
My first impression of Cyberpunk was negative. I didn’t like the album’s electronic elements, which, at that time, seemed far removed from the rock and metal I loved. The looped beats, the industrial feel, the keyboard riffs, the samples—these were part of an aural world I had yet to discover, much less accept. A fellow classmate let me listen to it. I still recall the CD booklet and its Blendo-inspired cover. I found it more style over substance (an ironic take, considering my limited musical taste at the time).
Fast-forward four years, and I was very much into electronic music. I was (and remain) a huge David Bowie fan, and his 1997 electronica album, ‘Earthling’, opened me up to the genre. In quick succession I dove into The Prodigy, Nine Inch Nails, Underworld, Chemical Brothers, Jesus Jones, Orbital, Paul Oakenfold…the list goes on. But it would be a few more years—2007, 2008—before I gave Idol’s ‘Cyberpunk’ another chance.
A time warp scene
A sci-fi story
A dirt-colored love
You hope for glory
I like to fight, I kill global oppression
If I quit, no hope of redemption
- from ‘Tomorrow People’, track #5
By then, I had devoured William Gibson’s cyberpunk science fiction novel, ‘Neuromancer’ several years prior, as well as other cyberpunk works. In light of that, Idol’s songs took on a special significance. I not only enjoyed Idol’s 1993 offering, but recognized what he was going for when he composed it. Though it’s a loosely-connected concept album, it fits Idol’s theme of resistance via technology. The so-called ‘high-tech, low-life’ mantra that’s come to personify cyberpunk in general, regardless of the medium. And the more I listened to it, the more I loved it. The lyrics are barebones, but biting. The song intros fit the theme. The beats, the angst, the despair, the vitality, the guitars—all the classic Idol touches are there, but for a new millennium.
It’s also a dour listen, despite the various upbeat pieces. The subject matter rarely delves into happiness, and the dystopian world of the cyberpunks is highlighted in the lyrics. That’s not a criticism, but when matched against Idol’s previous albums, it’s a stark contrast. It’s understandable why fans who enjoyed ‘Mony Mony’ or ‘Rebel Yell’ might not appreciate ‘Wasteland’ or ‘Concrete Kingdom’. Like me on that school bus, they weren’t ready.
Track Listing/Thoughts:
1. Untitled (Opening Manifesto) – This features elements, spoken by Idol, of the 1992 essay by Gareth Branwyn, ‘Is There a Cyberpunk Movement?’. This is my main criticism of the album: Idol should have started it with a kickass song, and then segued into this bit.
2. Wasteland – A good track that lets you know what the album is about right away. This is Billy Idol 2.0, and he seeks meaning in the cyberpunk world. With lyrics like ‘A missionary man amongst the heathen/Can’t you see a modern primitive?/I came back, I wanna find/I wanna give religion/When there was no religion at all’ he communicates the disillusionment with modern life that is central to the cyberpunk milieu.
3. Interlude 1 – This bit features audio from the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, which influenced Idol to change the lyrics for the following track.
4. Shock to the System – Easily one of the best tracks on the album, and the only song to appear subsequently on Idol’s compilations. It is also the only track from this album to be performed in his live shows after the release of Cyberpunk. Among the album’s offerings, ‘Shock’ is the one most similar to his previous work, but with an electronic edge.
5. Tomorrow People – Here is where the album really comes into its own regarding the cyberpunk theme. ‘People’ is one of the album’s top tracks, with stark guitar chords and strong lyrics (Blue eyes crying in the rain/For how long?/Tomorrow people/I laugh, tomorrow gone/For how long?/Tomorrow people). This track evokes the hopelessness and angst often portrayed in dystopian settings. The anger that the future has been stolen is potent—but so is the desire to reclaim it.
6. Adam in Chains – This is a powerful track. The first three minutes consist of a therapist asking the listener to relax; a perfect introduction, akin to having the anger from the previous songs drained away by rehabilitation and drugged coercion. The song itself is one of Idol’s best: some have interpreted it as a break-up piece, but I see it as Idol breaking away from the society that has poisoned his mind and body.
7. Neuromancer – The ode to Gibson’s seminal novel is addictive, with a hypnotic quality. It’s heavily processed, and of all the album’s tracks, this was surely one that Idol’s circa ’93 fanbase likely loathed the most. I like it a lot, even if its lyrics are a bit on the nose.
8. Power Junkie – One of the album’s lyrically weaker tracks, ‘Power’ nonetheless possesses a kinetic energy that fits the concept. Listening to this, I can imagine an ambitious street samurai, hellbent on physical augmentation to best their enemies.
9. Untitled (That Which Beareth Thorns) – Okay, this is one of the stranger intros on the album, but it’s not without merit. ‘For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love’ implies that the listener’s beliefs have no bearing on the cruel world of the cyberpunks.
10. Love Labors On – One hell of a song, trance-like in its quality. I can visualize a beaten-up, damaged cyberpunk recovering before their next street confrontation. In the process, they reflect on who they are, and what matters to them. What does a person really love in such a world?
11. Heroin – While I like Idol’s take on this Velvet Underground cover, I’m not fond of it on this album. It’s one of Cyberpunk’s missteps. It goes on for too long, wearing out its welcome quickly. But, some of the lyrics are damn near perfect for the theme, so perhaps that’s why he selected it: ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins/But not mine’.
12. Untitled (Injection) – I suppose this was intended as a coda to the previous, drug-related track, but I can take or leave it. It could hint that the following track’s paradisical ambiance is chemically-induced, so maybe I’m wrong.
13. Shangrila – An excellent track, ‘Shangrila’ (spelled that way on the album) is one of Cyberpunk’s slower songs. It’s easy to visualize a group of cyberpunks finding solace—either in drugs, a virtual retreat, or each other—with lyrics like ‘Relax, let your thoughts drift away/Chance of freedom/Live in belief and harmony’. It goes without saying that such a state is temporary in their harsh, cutthroat world.
14. Concrete Kingdom – A standout track, ‘Kingdom’ is a dour song of desolation. It implies that, despite all the wonders of the technological world, there exists a void in one’s heart, exacerbated by their urbanized reality. ‘Ain’t no love in a concrete kingdom/Ain’t much life/Ain’t no life in a concrete kingdom/I hear cries tonight’.
15. Untitled (Galaxy Within) – Another odd interlude. It’s as if Idol wanted subliminal messaging dispersed between the tracks.
16. Venus – Though a typical Idol song about sex, ‘Venus’ is quite catchy. I can’t help but think of the giant Joi hologram from Blade Runner 2049 when I hear this now. Is the object of our desire real, or artificial? Is there a point to where we wouldn’t care? In the cyberpunk world, do you find love where, and when, you can? ‘One touch of Venus/And she’ll receive us’.
17. Then the Night Comes – ‘Night’ sounds like a wrap-up track. It’s upbeat and addictive, and Idol could have ended the album with it. It’s another sex song: ‘Here she comes, so wild, so horny/My stony-eyed Medusa/She’s acting strange, insane/Oh yeah, we’re gonna get deranged’. But, in the context of the album, it feels like the last bit of happiness before everything falls apart.
18. Untitled (Before Dawn) – A strange interlude. Not out of place, but it’s bereft of dialogue.
19. Mother Dawn – The last song on Cyberpunk, and seemingly a triumphant one. But if you pay attention to the lyrics, it comes across as a sacrificial victory: ‘Come and take a journey through the land of night/Darkness strokes the face and steals away the sight/Night is all around me, stars are in my hair/I feel them tangled in the secrets we'll find hidden there, all right/Reaching through the madness to the other side/Where the sun is rising with her arms held wide’. It’s funerary, as if our hero is dying. I imagine a cyberpunk pushing themselves to their limits to stick it to the system one last time, inspiring others to resist. Think of the endings to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Matrix: Revolutions, or William Gibson’s Mona Lisa Overdrive, and you’ll see what I mean.
20. Outro – This is a perfect outro for the album. You have lyrics from the previous song spoken rather than sung, which gives an entirely different, darker vibe. You have random people screaming, and you have someone (Idol?) shouting ‘Cyberpunk!”. It’s a call to action.
Upon the album’s 1993 release, people criticized Idol for trying to steal or co-opt ‘cyberpunk culture’, in order to cash in on it. In other words, he was behaving like the very corporations that are the typical antagonists in cyberpunk fiction. I disagree. Idol may not have been an uber computer geek, but he made an effort to express his punk rock musical aesthetic via the relatively new medium of do-it-yourself (DIY) composition. He created the majority of Cyberpunk on a Macintosh computer, using, among other software, Pro Tools (an industry standard now). For a mainstream artist, he was ahead of the curve. Jesus Jones did the same thing with Perverse in 1993, and it also floundered on the charts. Billy Idol and Mike Edwards were a few years too early with these electronic forays (though Edwards/Jesus Jones had been dabbling in that from their inception).
Cyberpunk’s music videos didn’t do the album any favors, however. They’re emblematic of their time, but even then, they’re not the best representations of that medium. The video for ‘Shock to the System’ showcases police brutality, with Idol undergoing a metamorphosis into a technological Übermensch to save the masses. ‘Adam in Chains’ shows Idol in an asylum, watching a pendulum, recalling a lover that may have betrayed him. The song is far superior to the video, and without the intro (“Would you like to be hypnotized?”), it loses some of its impact. And ‘Heroin’, Idol’s cover of the Velvet Underground song? It’s all Blendo-inspired edits, with hypodermic needles superimposed over Idol, who sings while backing against a metal fence. Like he wants to break out. He’s not the only one.
Thematically, these videos aren’t awful, but slicker production values could have worked wonders.
Cyberpunk also came with a 3 ½ floppy disk (a technological relic now), along with this ad copy from his record company, Chrysalis Records:
“As we get set to address a new millennium, science and technology are becoming the new weapons of change, and who better to arm you for the future battle than BILLY IDOL.”
But that was then.
What does Billy Idol’s Cyberpunk mean now, in the 21st century?
Back through time, I know
You’re calling me
For a savior, I know
It’s my destiny
So I’m gonna rise
- from Love Labors On, track #10
Cyberpunk, as a genre, has almost always been intended as a warning of what could happen to our society. Corporate greed, social stratification, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and of course, the use of technology to not only empower those structures, but also the method by which to circumvent them. Some of the genre’s staples haven’t aged well—such as the near-fetishistic application of cybernetics—but in other regards, its stories became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Idol was among the prophetic bards of those predictive caveats.
The cyberpunk genre is about, at its heart, rebellion. Idol’s music communicates that in spades. Some have called his punkish sneer to be mere posturing, but there’s emotional content in his work, and Cyberpunk is no exception. I don’t care if he’s read Gibson, Cadigan, or Sterling. I don’t care if he’s a techie. I respond to Idol’s passionate delivery of the need to resist that which tries to dominate every facet of our lives.
And yet, how poorly we have resisted. As of 2023, we are the most surveilled society in human history. Corporations continue to destroy the planet in order to sell us things we think we need, while they benefit to the tune of trillions. Via technology, information is easier to access than ever before, yet disinformation, pseudoscience, and outright lies rule social media and taint our civilization. Fascism, bigotry, and gun violence have made my home country, the United States, one of the most dangerous places to live on Earth.
But I have hope. All is not lost. That’s why Billy Idol’s Cyberpunk is still worth a listen. Those songs still matter. They resonate down those neon-lit avenues, beckoning us to rebel.
You see the shape of things to come
Why give up our lives
To the brutes and fools?
- from Adam in Chains, track #6