"With her on it, it got three times better": Watch Billy Idol and Avril Lavigne perform their new single, 77

Billy Idol ft. Avril Lavigne – 77 - YouTube

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Billy Idol has teamed up with Avril Lavigne on a new single that represents something of an inter-generational punk pop summit.

77 is, of course, a nod to the year punk broke (at least in the UK) and contains plenty of references for the youngsters to Google and their grandparents to nod sagely at: ‘Kings Road every weekend/ they hate us and they don’t know why,’ Billy croons. ‘No love from policemen/ Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die’. (The latter was the original name of McLaren and Westwood’s Sex boutique, in case you were wondering.)

"Avril's just fantastic on 77, it was great working with her," Idol told Drew Barrymore on her talk show earlier this year. "With her on it, it got three times better."

Idol and Lavigne have now performed the track together on Jimmy Kimmel, with Steve Stevens taking his customary place on guitar.

It’s the second single from the punk icon’s Dream Into It album, which is his first for over a decade. Not that Billy has been, ahem, idle all this time. For a while he teamed up with Steve Jones and Paul Cook to form a Generation Sex, a kind of McBusted-style portmanteau outfit that played both Generation X and Sex Pistols songs. He also guested on Miley Cyrus’s 2020 album Plastic Hearts.

Just before the pandemic he also starred in a public service campaign to persuade New York motorists to play their part in reducing air pollution, which featured the tagline ‘Billy Never Idles’. Never let it be said that the one time member of the Bromley contingent who ended up selling punk rock to middle America ever takes himself too seriously…

The singer turns 70 later this year, but clearly still has plenty of gas left in his tank. He’s touring all summer, mainly in the US though he does have a couple of UK dates in June. He plays the Milton Keynes Forever Now festival on June 22 and London’s Wembley Arena two days later.

Dream Into It was released last week on Dark Horse, a reactivated version of George Harrison’s label which is now part of BMG.