Singer, iconoclast
Born July 3rd 1957. Died pril 25th 2011.
Anyone listening to the more interesting music radio stations over the
last few months could be forgiven for thinking that former X Ray Spex
vocalist Poly Styrene, who has died of cancer aged fifty-three, was a
brand new discovery, whose recently released Generation Indigo album
was perfectly in tune with the zeitgeist of peaceful protest in the
face of war-mongering at every turn.
As it is, the operatically trained singer born Marianne Joan Elliot-Said was an original punk icon who had reinvented herself in her own unorthodox image during apparent year zero white heat of the era, and who, with the onset of a new generation of equally individual female performers from the Riot Grrrl movement right up to The Gossip's Beth Ditto, appeared to have found her time again. It's tragic, then, that audiences will no longer be allowed the chance to see and hear Poly Styrene in the flesh.
For anyone growing up in the late 1970s, stumbling across Poly Styrene
on Top of the Pops was a strange experience. Arriving during a time
when gender identity was being re-defined, watching this curious
looking creature bellowing out the piece of consumerist science-fiction
that was 1978 single The Day The World Turned Day-Glo while the
rudimentary punk backing was being subverted by an even more urgent
saxophone that pre-dated today's jazz-punk skronk bands by decades was
an eye-opener for sure.
By that time Styrene and X-Ray Spex had already made their defining
statement with their 1977 debut, Oh Bondage, Up Yours!, on which the
spoken word introduction, 'Some people think little girls should be
seen and not heard,”became an accidental manifesto. Further singles,
Identity and the more mantra-like Germ Free Adolescents, also the title
of X-Ray Spex's sole studio album during their first incarnation,
betrayed a more hippified if appositely abrasive aesthetic more fully
explored on Styrene's later solo work and her time with the Hare
Krishna movement.
Styrene's recent high profile following previous solo albums and
occasional X-Ray Spex reunions was a testament, not just to how much
the landscape has changed fir female artists doing things on their own
terms, but what a great artist she had become as she matured. Passing
away so shortly after Ari Up, whose equally incendiary band The Slits
Styrene pre-dated, one became aware too of her innate humanity and
eternal optimism – faith, if you like – in the face of adversity.
One of Styrene's final posts on her Twitter feed on April 19th spoke
volumes. “Slowly slowly trying 2 get better,” it read, “miss my walk
along the promenade. Would b so nice 2 sing again & play Generation
Indigo live. Luv Poly X.”
We may still have the records, but the fact that no-one will ever hear
the combative, contrarily fragile and utterly unique voice of Poly
Styrene play live is a major loss for music.
The Herald, April 30th 2011
ends
Born July 3rd 1957. Died pril 25th 2011.
Anyone listening to the more interesting music radio stations over the
last few months could be forgiven for thinking that former X Ray Spex
vocalist Poly Styrene, who has died of cancer aged fifty-three, was a
brand new discovery, whose recently released Generation Indigo album
was perfectly in tune with the zeitgeist of peaceful protest in the
face of war-mongering at every turn.
As it is, the operatically trained singer born Marianne Joan Elliot-Said was an original punk icon who had reinvented herself in her own unorthodox image during apparent year zero white heat of the era, and who, with the onset of a new generation of equally individual female performers from the Riot Grrrl movement right up to The Gossip's Beth Ditto, appeared to have found her time again. It's tragic, then, that audiences will no longer be allowed the chance to see and hear Poly Styrene in the flesh.
For anyone growing up in the late 1970s, stumbling across Poly Styrene
on Top of the Pops was a strange experience. Arriving during a time
when gender identity was being re-defined, watching this curious
looking creature bellowing out the piece of consumerist science-fiction
that was 1978 single The Day The World Turned Day-Glo while the
rudimentary punk backing was being subverted by an even more urgent
saxophone that pre-dated today's jazz-punk skronk bands by decades was
an eye-opener for sure.
By that time Styrene and X-Ray Spex had already made their defining
statement with their 1977 debut, Oh Bondage, Up Yours!, on which the
spoken word introduction, 'Some people think little girls should be
seen and not heard,”became an accidental manifesto. Further singles,
Identity and the more mantra-like Germ Free Adolescents, also the title
of X-Ray Spex's sole studio album during their first incarnation,
betrayed a more hippified if appositely abrasive aesthetic more fully
explored on Styrene's later solo work and her time with the Hare
Krishna movement.
Styrene's recent high profile following previous solo albums and
occasional X-Ray Spex reunions was a testament, not just to how much
the landscape has changed fir female artists doing things on their own
terms, but what a great artist she had become as she matured. Passing
away so shortly after Ari Up, whose equally incendiary band The Slits
Styrene pre-dated, one became aware too of her innate humanity and
eternal optimism – faith, if you like – in the face of adversity.
One of Styrene's final posts on her Twitter feed on April 19th spoke
volumes. “Slowly slowly trying 2 get better,” it read, “miss my walk
along the promenade. Would b so nice 2 sing again & play Generation
Indigo live. Luv Poly X.”
We may still have the records, but the fact that no-one will ever hear
the combative, contrarily fragile and utterly unique voice of Poly
Styrene play live is a major loss for music.
The Herald, April 30th 2011
ends
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