So sad. She was a huge part of my teenaged years, and beyond.
The first eleven seconds of X-Ray Spex’s debut single, from 1977, rank among the most memorable punk intros on record. “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard,” says their singer, in a flat, pouty tone. “But I think” — and here her voice raises into a jubilant half-scream — “OH BONDAGE UP YOURS!” Then she counts in the band, “one two three four,” only the “four” goes squealing upward, thrillingly. Everything the song has to say is already captured in those eleven seconds, before the music even begins. Sadly enough, the woman who accomplished that, Poly Styrene, died last night, at age 53, of breast cancer. Today, her newest and last album, Generation Indigo, was released in the U.S. (…)
The name Poly Styrene comes from the plastic that sporks and Styrofoam are made from — she chose it because it referred to something “lightweight and disposable.” Here’s the thing about polystyrene, though: It’s one of the least biodegradable things you handle every day. It stays around forever. The name is apt that way: We will most likely continue, for a long while, to hear women pass along bits of the way Poly Styrene sang. It’s a sound that answered an important question: How can a woman get onstage and be commanding without having to imitate masculine versions of “tough”? What’s another way for a woman’s voice to sound fierce — but also find audible, inspiring joy in the fact of speaking up? Her answer is very nearly contagious: There’s such freedom and pleasure there that it’s no surprise singers keep coming back to it.
***
From Julie Burchill’s The Boy Looked at Johnny (1978) — which I keep on my desk at all times…
“Oh Bondage Up Yours!” was banned by the BBC and salivated over by the national and counter-culture press as “a song about bondage.” Released in the autumn of 1977, it was a song about pride. (…) Pretty, personable but determinedly asexual onstage, Poly was attacked by threatened male critics for having a brace, a brain and no visible boyfriends.
***
When you look in the mirror
Do you see yourself
Do you see yourself
On the t.v. screen
Do you see yourself
In the magazine
When you see yourself
Does it make you scream
When you look in the mirror
Do you smash it quick
Do you take the glass
And slash your wrists
Did you do it for fame
Did you do it in a fit
Did you do it before
You read about it
— “Identity”
***
More from my site
