Billy Idol is never exactly going to be cool. Now recovered from his various drug addictions, the peroxide muscleman is determined to show there's more to him than his image as a yobbish fashion disaster. His first album for over a decade sees him try a bit of everything: punk, country-rock, power ballads and even the odd hint of Burt Bacharach-style pop. You need a special voice to get away with that kind of genre-hopping and Idol hasn't really got one - his snarling fog-horn is about as one-dimensional as it gets. On the positive side, however, the return of his old songwriting partner Steve Stevens ensures that there's plenty of rabble-rousing tunes just begging to be put on MTV rotation. Devil's Playground is clunky, shallow and as about as dangerous as a pair of tartan trousers. But it's also a lot more entertaining than most members of the cool police would care to admit.

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