Happy Music Monday! Some people say that the reason we gave up the cyberpunk genre is that we just caught up with ourselves, and cyberpunk fiction just became plain ol' fiction. In our world full of wi-fi and iPhones, there might be something to that. Today Scott's celebrating the world of cyberpunk with five artists who explored the genre when it was still mostly new. Today, though, it's all just retro-tech.
Billy Idol's brief dive into "cyber" music could have actually been a good thing. In 1993, industrial and techno and all that stuff were actually on the cutting edge, and a Velvet Underground cover wasn't a bad way to start his new career. It was just that, well, he decide to jump in 100% and tell everyone how much of a computer nerd he was, and doing that in 1993 meant the real nerds knew what to ask him. Unlike David Bowie two years later, Billy didn't exactly know how to respond to tech questions at all. And that meant he was pretty much despised by the Usenet hordes who called him a fakerpunk. He never really came back to this persona again.
More unexpected cyberpunks ahead! Can you guess them all? NO. YOU CAN'T. DON'T LIE.
As happens with many retro-themed bands, there are always a few little anachronisms here and there. The gun's from one time period and the light's from another and one scene is from '79 and the other is from '92 and the director calls them both '80s and whatever. But here Com Truise assembles something that isn't something old, but something new. The references cover everything from Automan to Blade Runner but not in a way that doesn't fit. What you get is a nice little cyberpunk fairy tale that shows you what the past looks like to the present. And, hey, this isn't a bad way to be remembered!
Possibly it surprises no one that Bjork and Gondry were interested in the artistic future where a blue collar worker had to endure the bizarre nature of humanity's future. But this cyberpunk life is more Cronenberg than you might expect. Bio-tech is clearly everywhere, from the trucks to the dentist's office, and you gotta do what you gotta do to get back on the road.
Warren Zevon - Run Straight Down
That's right. The guy who wrote "Werewolves Of London" did a cyberpunk record, which is inspired by good ol' William Gibson and his ilk. And yes, that's David Gilmour helping out. But guess what? It's still not the most unexpected person on this list. The most unexpected person on this list is...
Bryan Adams - Do I Have To Say The Words
Yeah, I know, I know, this isn't even the good Bryan Adams period. But this video is OUTSTANDING cyberpunk. Look at the story it's telling. There's an outsider, rich enough to hire a driver, going to an overpopulated city to find... something. That technology he's using might be showing him his past, or his dreams, or something that never existed, or something that lives somewhere else. But he's a man in love, clearly, and he's gone to a place he doesn't belong to find the technology he doesn't have at home, just to maybe, possibly, hopefully, figure out how he can be happy. Forget the pop music. This is as cyberpunk as it gets.
Let us just remind you: some images come from the corresponding Wikipedia page and are here under fair use. See you next week.