Musical Montage: Billy Idol “Speed”

Outside of Mark Mancina’s extremely memorable and propulsive score, the other music for 1994’s iconic action movie Speed is not well known at best and forgotten at worst.  There was a soundtrack album to go along with the movie that featured a bizarre mish-mash of songs that were vaguely about speed or vehicles with artists ranging from Gary Numan to Pat Benetar to Gin Blossoms to Blues Traveller but it obviously was not as remembered and beloved like the movie.  The big swing off the soundtrack album was a new song by Billy Idol, also called “Speed” that was an attempt by Billy to rebound from his disastrous Cyberpunk album in 1993. Working with his legendary guitarist Steve Stevens, the duo tried to go back to some of Billy’s hits, specifically going for a similar beat and guitar riff to “Rebel Yell”.  The song, along with the entire soundtrack album, was a commercial failure and “Speed” peaked at #38 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts.  The music video features Billy performing while clips from the movie are interspersed throughout. Check it out below.