Devil's Playground is the sixth studio album by the English rock musician Billy Idol, released on 22 March 2005. It is his first album in over a decade, the last being 1993's Cyberpunk, and his first new songs since 2001, when he covered "Don't You (Forget About Me)" on the compilation album Greatest Hits.
The album saw Idol reunite with guitarist Steve Stevens and producer Keith Forsey in the studio. All songs were written or co-written by Idol except "Plastic Jesus". The album was engineered and mixed by Brian Reeves at the Jungle Room in Los Angeles.
During the recording of the album, the crew of the TV show Bands Reunited ambushed the Jungle Room and tried to convince Billy to reunite with his old band Generation X for a one-night performance, but Idol slammed the door on them, leading to an apology by the crew.
Release
Idol and the band supported the album with a world tour of rock festival appearances in 2005 and 2006, including several performances on the Vans Warped Tour.
The song "Scream" was used in an episode of Viva La Bam, in which Idol also guest starred, where he and Bam Margera sing it as they go down the highway.
Critical reception
Devil's Playground was met with "mixed or average" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 52 based on 11 reviews.[5]
In a review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: "On this pair of hooky, catchy tunes named after girls, Devil's Playground points toward an interesting, fruitful direction for Idol – one that acknowledges his veteran status without sounding aged – that he hopefully may wind up taking next time out.".[6]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Billy Idol and Brian Tichy except as noted.
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