Billy Idol Blasted for 'Selling Out'

One of the biggest criticisms of Billy Idol is that he sold out his punk roots for fame and glamour. And while even his earliest music wasn't particularly hard core, once Gen X broke up Idol became a pop star and separated from the toiling punk masses of the club scenes. I'm just recalling off hand here, but I found a post last night that captures that kinda buzz:

To, to those of us who were already punk rockers, Billy was a difficult subject to tackle. We could all agree that Rebel Yell, Eyes Without a Face and all that shit sucked. Billy was a very blatant case of “selling out”. But some of us, if we were honest with oursleves [sic], thought the White Wedding video was pretty cool and even though we thought Billy Idol was a tool, it was hard not to love the early Generation X tracks. I heard the band the first time on Burning Ambitions which as long time readers know, was my introduction to punk, playing the A-Side of this single and it stood equally alongside other class of 77′ acts like Wire, ATV and X- Ray Spex. Your Generation is like a glam version of The Ramones which is probably exactly what they were going for. It is an amazingly cool punk rock track and the B-Side is no slouch either. It’s all freakin’ cotton candy for the ears.

Actually, I have no need to prove how punk I am by dissing Idol's later tracks. By the early '80s it had been two or three years of non-stop gigs, seeing every band under the sun, U.S. and U.K. A couple of buddies started successful outfits of their own, and my best friend had shifted to rockabilly, at one point opening for acts like Stevie Ray Vaughn. In L.A. you just kinda went with the flow. Idol was cool because we liked punkers who made it big. Sure, not "selling out" is authentic, but even John Lydon cultivated his "public image" (and has more recently become a product pitchman). Besides, Steve Jones cut a few tracks on "Gen X," so you just get the real feel of what it was like back then even when Idol was going disco. Fun stuff.