BOOK REVIEW – Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol

Shane | 5 December 2014 | Reply

BOOK REVIEW – Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol
Simon & Schuster
October 2014
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8/10

With his spiky hair, surly sneer and infectious pop rock anthems Billy Idol ruled MTV and the charts in the ‘80s, a former punk who harnessed the style and angst of the London lowlife and harnessed it to a bold new form of musical expression – one where image was at least as important as content.

In Dancing With Myself Idol looks back on his life and what brought him to that point, as well as being brutally honest about his own failings – drugs, women – that toppled him from the top of the heap and left him with a fortune squandered and an addiction the size of Christmas.

We all love a good ‘underdog made good story,’ just as we all love hearing the tales of rock n’ roll hedonism and debauchery – and few stories have them in such equal measure as Idol’s, especially when it comes to a quick holiday in Thailand which ended up with tens of thousands of dollars of damage and a forcibly sedated Idol being escorted onto a plane to evict him from the country!
Yes, drugs have been the downfall of many a rock n’ roll player, and whilst that is entertaining stuff, it’s the formative days when Idol was finding his feet, his style, and the confidence to become a world-beater that is altogether more interesting.

Dancing With Myself – named after his first hit song with London punks Generation X, could it have been called anything else? – is a great read and, seemingly all Idols own work, should be enough to make the stereotype cheesy memories of his past evaporate, replaced with a new-found respect.