Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss Me Deadly is the third studio album by the English punk rock and new wave band Gen X. Produced by Keith Forsey it was issued in the United Kingdom on 23 January 1981. It was the final album to be released before their disbandment, though they would briefly reunite in 1993. Kiss Me Deadly failed on release to enter the UK Albums Chart, and Gen X broke up after the record's commercial failure. Theme Kiss Me Deadly displayed a developing complexity in the songwriting partnership of lead singer Billy Idol and bassist Tony James, as they transitioned from their origins as musicians in the London punk rock scene of the late 1970s into a more sophisticatedly nuanced sound, and mature lyrical and thematic content, at the initiation of the British New Wave movement in 1980. The album's theme is the troubled complexities of life in the metropolitan Western World at the end of the 20th century, with reflections on city life, social isolation, narcotic abuse and drug dependency, and the ambition and exhilaration of youth. The lyrics for "Dancing with Myself" were inspired by a 1979 visit to a Tokyo nightclub while the predecessor band Generation X were on tour in Japan, when Idol and James encountered the strange sight of young Japanese nightclubbers disco dancing with their own reflections in a mirror-walled venue rather than with one another. The song's lyrics reflect social isolation in a crowd and the youthful search for companionship with the opposite sex.