No ordinary punk

Rock of youth: Billy Idol's trick of looking great to remain relevant

There was a time when you did not even have to speak to invoke the name of Billy Idol. A clenched fist, snarled lip and a gravelly shout, "C'mon, C'mon!" or "Flesh!" were all that were needed to summarize his beloved pop-punk and new wave career.

Idol (who plays House of Blues Wednesday night) has been working as a solo act for nearly 30 years following the dissolution of his more traditional English punk band, Generation X. His solo output has not exactly been voluminous. Take away his last two quickly forgotten studio albums, Cyberpunk and Devil's Playground, and a hilarious 2006 holiday album in which Idol makes like Bing Crosby for the cover art, and one realizes that his most-lasting work was all made before 1990.

The key word here is lasting.

Idol has managed to dupe us all into forgetting that his greatest singles — "Dancing With Myself," "Rebel Yell," "White Wedding," Every Without A Face" "To Be A Love" and "Cradle of Love" — are all 20 years old because he has one of the few song catalogs that never sounds dated or like a slave to any niche music moment.

His hits have outlasted post-punk, new wave, modern rock, alternative rock, new rock, FM radio, the cassette tape and the CD — yet his songs still keep pouring out of Sirius digital players and Pandora jukeboxes on your web browser as if they were made yesterday.

Idol's trick: He looks great.

At age 54 he still looks like Iggy Pop feels. The difference is that Iggy looks like Crypt Keeper. Aside from a few more lines around that curled upper lip, Idol looked like he stopped aging about the time his singles did.

More importantly, Idol's best work has always been an offshoot of songs by rock's pioneers. For his first EP as a solo artist, he covered Tommy James & The Shondells "Mony Mony," and never deviated from that theme.

Idol absorbed the lessons from classic rock, tweaked the formula with a little Idol swagger for his own originals and found the fountain of youth as his songs became classics themselves.

Admit it. You know all the words to at least two Billy Idol songs by heart.

Not bad for a guy who never had an album chart higher than No. 6 and only one No. 1 single on the U.S. Hot 100: A re-release of "Mony Mony" in 1987.

Billy Idol, 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at House of Blues

Tickets: $39.50-$65

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put it on santa's amex

Affluent Houston suburbs top list of biggest holiday spenders in U.S.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Residents in The Woodlands looove to do up the holidays.

It looks like Santa Claus is going to be competing with residents in The Woodlands to see who brings the most lavish holiday gifts this year.

This festive Houston neighbor ranked No. 13 in WalletHub's annual report on U.S. cities with the biggest holiday budgets in 2024.

Residents in this well-to-do suburb are expected to spend $3,395 on their Christmas gifts this year. That's up $79 from the $3,316 they were ready to drop in the 2023 ranking — but it bumped them down three spots from their previous ranking at No. 10.

The U.S. Census Bureau says that The Woodlands' estimated population of 114,436 had a median household income of $130,011 in 2023. No wonder they have the extra cash to spare.

The Woodlands consistently makes the list of the top 15 U.S. cities with the biggest holiday spenders, outshining its Houston neighbor Sugar Land, which slipped one spot this year from their previous high ranking of No. 14 in 2023.

The average holiday budget in Sugar Land is still an exorbitant amount – $3,214 – but that only garnered the city No. 15 in the overall ranking out of 558 U.S. cities. You gotta spend to stay on top.

The No. 1 city in the U.S. for biggest holiday spenders in 2024 is Newton, Massachusetts, a wealthy suburb right outside of Boston, where the median income measured in 2022 was $176,373. Slots 2 through 5 were all cities in California's Silicon Valley: Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Milpitas.

Six additional Houston-area cities landed in this year's biggest holiday budgets, including:

No. 25 – League City ($2,897)
No. 60 – Pearland ($2,223)
No. 238 – Pasadena ($1,267)
No. 292 – Missouri City ($1,204)
No. 355 – Conroe ($1,087)
No. 477 – Baytown ($824)

Meanwhile, Houston proper landed at No. 241 this year with an average holiday budget of $1,334.

Each year, WalletHub calculates the maximum holiday budget for over 550 U.S. cities "to help consumers avoid post-holiday regret," the website says. The study factors in income, age of the population, and other financial indicators such as debt-to-income ratio, monthly-income-to monthly-expenses ratio, and savings-to-monthly-expenses ratio.

Whether a Houstonian's holiday budget is under $200 or more than $1,000, it's better to prioritize remaining within that budget instead of racking up the credit card bill, according to WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo.

"There are plenty of ways to enjoy the holidays and show you care without spending much money, like hosting potlucks or giving handmade gifts," said Lupo.

Other Texas cities that made it into the top 100 are:

No. 7 – Flower Mound ($3,541)
No. 11 – Frisco ($3,412)
No. 18 – Allen ($3,070)
No. 23 – Cedar Park ($2,930)
No. 32 – Plano ($2,658)
No. 39 – Round Rock ($2,538)
No. 45 – North Richland Hills ($2,484)
No. 52 – McKinney ($2,386)
No. 76 – Richardson ($1,980)
No. 81 – Carrollton ($1,932)
No. 87 – Austin ($1,905)
No. 92 – Lewisville ($1,848)

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