- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Valley of the Dolls is the second album by Generation X and was produced by Ian Hunter, the lead singer for the long-lived British rock band Mott the Hoople.
Generation X – Valley of the Dolls (1979): When I first heard the term “Generation X” bandied about as a label for the people who came along right after my own baby boomer generation, I wondered why the name of this rock band would be used that way. I had it backwards of course; in this instance, Generation X was a book written about youth culture by British journalists Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett in 1965. Bandleader Billy Idol’s mother had a copy of the book, and this first-wave British punk rock band took their name from its title. As it turns out, Generation X is a label that has been applied to disaffected youth since the 1950’s; but its use to identify an entire segment of the population – which led to the successive labels “Generation Y” (now known as the Millennials) and “Generation Z” – didn’t occur until the publication of Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, a 1991 novel written by Canadian author Douglas Coupland.
While not so well known as, say, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, and the Damned, Generation X was one of the first punk rock bands to be featured on the British television program Top of the Pops. Valley of the Dolls – named for a famous 1966 novel by Jacqueline Susann that was later turned into a motion picture (“dolls” is or was a slang term for barbiturates or “downers”) – is the second album by Generation X and was produced by Ian Hunter, the lead singer for the long-lived British rock band Mott the Hoople. This second album adds a glam-rock sheen to their punk rock stylings, reminiscent of the best-known hit by Mott the Hoople, “All the Young Dudes” (written by David Bowie). Billy Idol would go on to have a celebrated solo career with numerous hit songs during the 1980’s and a high profile on MTV. Idol is still touring and regularly has shows in Biloxi.