Robbed Hit of the Week 12/23/13 - Billy Idol's "Catch My Fall"...

Billy Idol - "Catch My Fall"
from the album Rebel Yell (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #50

This week's "robbed hit" is by punk rocker turned pop star Billy Idol, whose 1983 album Rebel Yell's first single, the title track, was a 'robbed hit' on my blog back in July. However, his follow-up single, the part ballad part throwdown "Eyes Without A Face", became his first top-10 pop hit in the US in 1984. The third release, "Flesh For Fantasy", also made it in the top-40.

For his fourth single from Rebel Yell, Idol went with the more mellow "Catch My Fall" (written by Idol with guitarist Steve Stevens), which sported a video that played off of his debonair vocals on the record to give the exact opposite image...

"Catch My Fall" went to the halfway mark on the pop chart in America in December of 1984, while scaling to #24 on the rock radio format. Internationally, the single made it just outside the top-10 at #11 in Germany, while not reaching the chart in Idol's native England until 1988, where it stalled at #63.  It's a shame, the record was a good mark of his versatility as a singer, as one of the few punk artists who could credibly carry a mainstream rock song.