Billy Idol/Generation X

When his British punk pals were dubbing themselves Rotten and Vicious, William Broad was already playing pop hero as Billy Idol. His punk band Generation X always had an element of pop, and Idol's first solo hit was the Gen X-originated "Dancing With Myself," a butt-shaking mix of punk attitude and club-kid beats that bummed out and boogied down at the same time. The king of the Elvis sneer brought bad attitude and a sense of menace to the surf-guitar riffs and new wave cool on "White Wedding," but his #1 cover of Tommy James' "Mony Mony" (a bigger hit than the original) showed that even the punk-schooled renegade with the "Rebel Yell" could get stuck on bubblegum. Uncover Idol's roots in Next Steps

In the glory days of MTV, Billy Idol was the ultimate rebel rocker, with his leather-gloved, spiky-haired look and guitarist Steve Stevens' Van Halen-goes-new wave fretwork, but his softer side helped make him a mainstream pop star to boot. The former punk turns soul-slinging love man on Idol's hit version of Stax soulster William Bell's lusty "To Be a Lover." The sweet tenor sax adorning Idol's deep-throated croon on the moody ballad "Catch My Fall" cements his status as a rough-hewn romantic. And by 2001, Idol was even more comfortable with his sensitive side, when he covered the ultimate graduation-day anthem, Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)." Dig Idol's punk past in Deep Cuts

Before he became a bare-chested, '80s new wave pin-up boy, Billy Idol was the frontman for first-generation British punks Generation X. They helped bust down the doors of stodgy stadium rock with the Clash-like roar of their fist-pumping, all-for-one anthem "One Hundred Punks," and rattled the rock 'n' roll floorboards with the machine-gun guitar, locomotive beat, and working-class war cry of "Day By Day." For all of Generation X's leather-clad, combat-booted punk power, though, they weren't afraid to embrace punk taboos, like the Beatles, giving John Lennon's questing plea "Gimme Some Truth" a safety-pins-and-peroxide makeover and achieving just the kind of past/future balance that would be key to Idol's solo success.

Billy Idol's photogenic mug was plastered all over MTV in the days of Max Headroom and Ronald Reagan, but only a small portion of Idol's huge audience was aware of his punk past with Generation X, the '70s rockers who brought a touch of pop to the Clash/Pistols template with tunes like "Kiss Me Deadly" and "Ready Steady Go." By the time Billy broke through to the big time as a solo star, he'd mastered the perfect mix of tough-guy rock roar and tender-guy come-hither croon. So for every bad-boy biker-bar jukebox jam, like "Cradle of Love," there was a mellow, make-out-mood ballad, like "Eyes Without a Face" — and here's the place to get hoisted aloft on an Idol tidal wave, with his wildest rebel yells and his sexiest dreams of "Flesh for Fantasy."