‘Charmed Life’: Billy Idol’s Death-Defying Fourth Album

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.

Reflecting on this near-fatal experience in a 2022 interview with Record Collector magazine, Idol said, “It was a wake-up call. I didn’t know if I was going to lose my leg. I didn’t know if I’d ever perform again – or make music again. The focus was on me getting better so I could go out on the tour that was already booked to promote the album.”

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As Idol noted in the same interview, he was “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.”

Charmed Life’s three singles were also extremely well chosen. Promoted by a brilliant video directed by David Fincher of Seven and Fight Club fame, the album’s exuberant “Cradle Of Love” shot to No. 2 in the U.S. while its follow-ups, “Prodigal Blues” and Idol’s pile-driving cover of The Doors’ 1971 classic “L.A. Woman” also drew attention to Charmed Life’s inherent quality.

Collectively, the three singles did sterling work. In fact, they allowed Charmed Life to carry right on from where Whiplash Smile left off on the Billboard 200, where it eventually peaked at No. 11 on its way to going platinum. This result surely helped reinvigorate Idol, who, post-recuperation, was able to return to work and complete his touring obligations. “I didn’t let my injury get me too down,” he later wrote in his memoir Dancing With Myself. “I just went hell-for-leather to try to get better to be able to perform [again]. Maybe that was what spurred my recovery. I had something – my music – to get better for. The thing I loved.”

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