TRAINWRECKORDS: "Cyberpunk" by Billy Idol

I think industrial music

Melvin shermen

I feel like "Cyberpunk Rock" could/should be a thing.

The Cowboy Critic

I watched it last night and I enjoyed it!

A. Crone

I like your nerd voice, Todd

ArthurCrane

You know it just hit me. We do have cyberpunk in 2018. It's Synthwave.

I never got what the big deal about Radiohead was myself, I feel like their music has dated pretty badly nowadays. Even the band thinks so to some extent, as they reportedly HATE "Creep" and dread having to play it at shows.

LifeIsStrange

One interesting bit of trivia i'm surprised you didn't mention is that Brett Leonard-the guy who directed the music video for "Shock to the System" was also the director for Lawnmower Man.

LifeIsStrange

Cyberpunk may have been dated by 1993, but as computers became more integrated into society by the late 90s and 2000s, I think it experienced a slight resurgence and that's how bands like Radiohead and Muse became so popular - they also managed to seamlessly blend electronica and rock with much better tech/tools than Billy had and unlike him, their version of stadium rock wasn't cheesy and super dated, with Radiohead in particular it was a lot more cerebral and evoked feelings of alienation and loneliness from living in a sci-fi dystopian setting. Also by 1999, the Matrix made cyberpunk cool again.

I actually dig Billy's take on heroin and I for one would love to see Michael Bay do a Blade Runner remake.

LifeIsStrange

I always thought the grunge bands like Nirvana came off like the real poseurs, since their whiny teen angst about not wanting to be famous made them come off as ungrateful brats, which has made their music age pretty badly today. I feel like Lindsay Ellis's review of Reality Bites applies equally well to Grunge music as a whole, "I hate you 1991!".

LifeIsStrange

I think this stuff is actually very cool, and I dug the Lawnmower Man films so I don't find that to be an unflattering comparison. I enjoyed Johnny Mnemonic, Virtuosity and Stallone's version of Judge Dredd, so no Cyberpunk is still plenty cool to me. Plus i'm super-excited for Cyberpunk 2077.

LifeIsStrange

I always thought this album was criminally underrated.

LifeIsStrange

I think it actually got worse: the cyberpunks became the megacorporations, and the "smash the system" rebels are the fascist trolls and bitcoin miners, whose respective endgames only speed up the irreversible damage that capitalism is already hastening, whether intentional or not.

Joe G

I still love that "R U a cyberpunk" image from a 1993 issue where 95% of the gadgets the guy has can now be done with your smartphone: <a href="https://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/cyberpunk-mondo-2000.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/cyberpunk-mondo-2000.jpg</a>

Joe G

In response to your brother's question, I think this album was made for me, a teenage dork who was reading William Gibson, watching the lesser-known cyberpunk films of the early 90s like Hardware and Nemesis, loved both heavy metal and electronic music, and used to put this album on while playing the Cyberpunk 2020 RPG. But I don't think there were enough of me who also liked music enough to buy enough copies of this album. I do think it was ahead of its time, but I also can't dispute that Billy Idol probably wasn't the one who could have made it work, because he would never be taken as sincere. Which is ironic, because despite a literary subgenre with pretensions of socio-political and psychological commentary, cyberpunk quickly became very superficial, all about the aesthetic of mirrorshades, leather trenchcoats, neon lights, chrome. (Everything that came after it with the "-punk" suffix is all about an aesthetic without even the pretense of depth.)

Joe G

Thing I always remember about Cyberpunk is my Dad mentioning it to me as a really interesting development in Billy Idol's music. I didn't know whether that made it instantly lame (because how could my old man understand 'techno'?) or secretly kinda' cool (Dad did have good taste in rock, even if popular trends dictated otherwise).

Sykonee

Not 100% sure if this would count, as 1) the band did mostly recover from it, and 2) they were never the biggest of bands, but I think Deftones' Saturday Night Wrist could be an interesting episode.

The 4'000th Yamaha DX7 Trent Reznor Broke With His Mic Stand or Foot

Eminem Encore trainwreckord? Technically it didn't kill his career since he's still big but it did made him a joke for a good 10 years.

Is it wrong that hearing some of the techno beats in this gave me a major nostalgia buzz? Or maybe it's just that I haven't mentally aged since the mid 90s. Also - "Michael Bay remaking Blade Runner" NOOOOOO don't give him ideas!

Kylie

Probably WAAAAY too early but I wouldn't mind seeing a Witness Trainwreckords.

Josh Spicer

I was EAGERLY awaiting this one and was not disappointed. Even when he's terribly, horribly misguided, I still can't help but like Billy.

Wyatt

I will always take an earnest failure like this over a boring middle of the road album any day.

Jane Altoids

Cyberpunk is dead - not because it became irrelevant, but because it became true. Neil Stevenson's Cryptonomicon is an example of a writer taking Cyberpunk genre elements, writing a story with them, and pointing out that it's just a modern action/thriller. So, yeah - Todd's final point is on-point, but it was made almost 2 decades ago. EDIT - seriously, I work at a company that's developing VR systems as an augment to their AI networks. I work in a corporate ecology, and spend 18 or so hours of my day willingly on corp property. Most of my neighbors drive electric cars and have voice-activated hip computers. My father has a cybernetic implant (artifical pancreas? The thing that helps regulate insulin). The DarkWeb is a thing, albiet significanly less sexy than portrayed in various RPG's. We have computer-based fiat cryptocurrencies - not sure if anyone saw THAT one coming, but it's definately got a cyberpunky vibe. Ecological devistation? Check that one off, too. Yeah, there are some differences between the fiction and reality - full cyborg conversions aren't seemingly a thing (due to power supply limitations, I believe), although our computer processing power is actually greater than was predicted. But by and large: yeah. We ARE living in Cyberpunk times.

Kevin Schultz

OH HOLY CRAP THIS IS GONNA BE AMAZING. I'm getting out my old Mondo 2000s!

Noah Ramon

Boy you sure snuck this guy in.

Josh Spicer