Idles Says ‘The Kids Are Not Alright’

The British pop quintet Idles is the band of this moment — a moment defined by an inscrutable youth culture protesting in support of abhorrent political positions or embracing styles of self-abusive depravity. Want to know what’s going on with kids today? Any of the rousing, engaging, and brilliant Idles concert performances on YouTube will explain it.

The label “punk” only half-describes Idles. This ragtag-looking band shifts styles from angry alarums to ravers, sensitive ballads to headbangers with aplomb. The name “Idles” (not to be confused with “Idols” of the TV competition shows) references England’s generations still on the ideological dole, robbed of ambition by a patronizing government yet fully aware they’ve been turned into wastrels.

This isn’t the same rebellion as the great era of ’70s punk that produced bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash. This background informs Idles’ rebellious reflex, whereas awful American rock bands Rage Against the Machine and Green Day are merely bratty. Nobody listens to the Clash anymore; its Marxist inclinations have worn thin despite the irresistible appeal of dissent. An Idles song such as “Ground” (“I raise my pink fist and say ‘black is beautiful’”) makes a listener immediately aware of the political audacity as well as the contradictions that have rendered youthful Marxism ultimately unfulfilling.

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We are fortunate to have 40-year-old Joe Talbot, the band’s Welsh frontman and lyricist, articulate contemporary grievances. In concert, Talbot’s tattoo-scrawled, ex-junkie limbs and anxious, bantam boxer’s jumpiness tell us he’s not necessarily working-class, that he’s a drug-pop Millennial who speaks to boys and girls alike, whether Soros-manipulated or simply seeking something to identify with. They respond to Talbot’s recognizable gruff masculinity — and to the breadth of the band’s pop-music savvy. In the music video for “Gift Horse,” Talbot’s persona recalls David Thewlis’s Johnny — the smart, voluble lout in Mike Leigh’s Naked — but plopped into the center of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s absurdist satire Crank.

It’s clear that Talbot, guitarist producer Mark Bowen, and mates have ingested consumer pop, and like but don’t trust it. References go back to the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Jam, the Damned, the Smiths and to American R and B and hip-hop. Not simply punk-influenced, the Idles quintet follows how black pop sublimates politics while white punk purges.

Idles’s songs explicate the social and moral turmoil that youthful protesters can’t put into words, but the band’s energetic live performances and enthusiastic crowds make sense of what otherwise look like ideological whims. Compare veteran rocker Neil Young’s recent meant-to-be-incendiary song implying that DOGE’s Elon Musk was fascist: It revealed the simplemindedness at the heart of protest pop. But the cultural presence of Idles explicates how trendy youth culture can be.

Because youthful political allegiance is up for grabs, it is to Idles’ great advantage that Talbot clarifies the peer pressure inflicted by overgrown kid Neil Young and the attention-chasing desperation of Eminem. Hip-hop enthusiast Talbot personalizes the “communal” confusions of the black American rap group Wu-Tang Clan. On “Mercedes Marxist,” the Idles lyric expresses a great Millennial realization:

Forgive my crippled head.
Our revolution’s dead.
They gambled all our pride.
They want money instead.

Even black rappers can relate to this political awakening. Wu-Tang’s 1996 “C.R.E.A.M.” (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) anticipated the Obama-era betrayal — which Talbot, in interviews, connects to the hypocrisies of Brexit.

Talbot is moved by politics but gets stymied by what he doesn’t know (this includes reggae and its notion of “politricks”). When he’s at his most rambunctious and ambitious, Talbot’s political urges feel genuine. After previous albums — Brutalism, Ultra Mono, and Joy Is an Act of Resistance — the new album, Tangk, uses an onomatopoeic word to vent the band’s guitar-based aggression but mostly employs a version of love songs. It’s risky, yet Tangk addresses Idles’ public identity as a fascinating political confession. Talbot’s line “I’m a smart man but I’m dumb for you” is not simply about the price of fame but about the nostrums he sells.

Idles was equally conscientious on “Car Crash” when Talbot rapped,

I got the keys to the Lambo. . . .
The fear’s gargantuan.
Don’t like what I see,
Racist prick on the right side,
No one to trust on the left,
So I put my foot on overdrive
Close my eyes and press.

It recalls the phantasmagoric car-crash scene in Better Man. “It’s about me being a car crash of a human being,” Talbot told an interviewer.

And on “Colossus,” his confession “I am my father’s son / His shadow weighs a ton” combines his growly, bearded hypermasculine image with Ian Dury’s swaggering music-hall wit. It goes full tilt with pop celebrations, with a final shift that nods to Morrissey’s complexities:

I’m like stone-cold Steve Austin,
I put homophobes in coffins.
I’m like Fred Astaire,
I dance like I don’t care.
I’m like Ted DiBiase,
I win no matter what it costs me.
I’m like Evel Knievel,
I break bones for my people.
I’m on my best behavior,
Like Jesus Christ, our savior.
I’m like Reggie Kray.

Idles gets confused by their own sophistication. “Mother” serves up “The best way to scare a Tory is to read and get rich,” at which Bryan Ferry might scoff, whereas “I don’t care about the next James Bond” (from “I’m Scum”) and “You’re a catalogue, plastic Sinatra” (from the wonderful “Never Fight a Man with a Perm”) make me laugh out loud. These are songs from a band that has not yet succumbed.

Mixed reviews for Tangk indicate the media’s displeasure since first praising Idles for early tunes about toxic masculinity. (“Their message starts to falter . . . as they aim for something unifying but land on something vacant,” moaned Paste.) But it’s the vivid ambivalence of Talbot scolding and smiling that makes Idles worthy. “Danny Nedelko,” a track about a Ukrainian immigrant of that name, was fatuous, and “Great,” an ironic song about contemporary Britain, contains the most patronizing line of their career: “We’re all in this together.”

But “When the Lights Come On” showcases what’s inarguable about Idles: a Joy Division–style emotional exploration targeting “a narcissist on a cucking stool” and noting, “The kids are not alright, / The kids are not alright.”

Talbot is stressed between the conflicting politics claiming his conscience. Finally, the Who’s classic “The kids are alright” is updated for the kids who want to have fun but are pierced, dyed, tattooed, and tormented by the need for groupthink. Take heed of Idles.