Billy Idol "Charmed Life" (2025 Reissue)

It’s hard to imagine a more aptly-titled record than Billy Idol’s fourth album Charmed Life. The long-awaited follow-up to 1986’s Whiplash Smile, it took two years to assemble, but when it was finally finished, disaster struck. Just hours after wrapping the sessions in February 1990, Idol took his motorcycle out for a ride in Hollywood and suffered a horrific crash which left him in hospital for months.

Bily Idol stated “(he's) lucky in the sense that the album was in the can,” and certainly Charmed Life did a great job of maintaining his profile while he recuperated. Released on April 30, 1990, it was still primarily a hard rock album, but Idol was determined that it would have a more organic feel than the often technologically-dependent Whiplash Smile.

“The whole idea of [Whiplash Smile] was to get more of an emotional side of me, not just the frustrated or angry side, but it was hard to do because of all the technology,” Idol told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “Instead of it being the freewheeling music of Rebel Yell, it was turning into something very stagnant or standard. So I wanted to get back on this album and tour to more of a real feel – real musicians playing the songs.”

Idol achieved that aim with Charmed Life, as the record’s widescreen rock anthems such as “The Loveless” and “Love Unchained” were the result of the singer and his band performing live in the studio. Yet while these raw, anthemic songs were quintessential Idol, he also proved he could thrive outside his comfort zone on intriguing, hybridized tracks including the noir-infused jazz of “Endless Sleep” and hedonistic electro-blues of “Trouble With The Sweet Stuff.”