The Day the World Went Monochrome
听
Poly Styrene is dead.
You might not know who Poly Styrene is, but I鈥檒l bet my bottom dollar that someone you know does. In the current musical climate, if you wanna form a band, you pick up an instrument, grab a few pals, and away you go. Simple as that. Boy or girl 鈥 it doesn鈥檛 really matter.
But around 30 years ago, things weren鈥檛 quite so simple. The importance of punk music on 20th century culture cannot be underestimated, and its breaking down of the barriers is pretty much directly responsible for the way youth culture operates today. Before punk, music was an exclusive thing, to be made by people who had the 鈥榗hops鈥 to play their instruments like virtuosos, whilst the rest of us plebs just sit and watch, open mouthed. Whether our mouths are open in awe, or whether we鈥檙e yawning, is another matter entirely.
But the crucial thing about this is that the people we鈥檙e watching up on stage are largely boys. Rock and roll always was a male dominated industry - it still is, to a large degree - but people like Poly Styrene helped to herald the change.
Punk, for all its utilitarian principles, didn鈥檛 upset the gender balance in rock and roll, at least not initially. The Sex Pistols. The Clash. The Damned. All boys, playing largely to boys. But along came a young girl called Marion Elliot, who saw the Sex Pistols, and thought, 鈥淚 could do that!鈥
Putting an advert in the paper for 鈥淵oung punx who want to stick it together鈥, and re-naming herself Poly Styrene, she formed X-Ray Spex, the first punk band to feature a significant female presence. Punk might have been a boy鈥檚 game, but here was one girl who was determined to play by her own rules.
With her distinctive stage gear of polyester fibres, thrift shop clothes, and braces on her teeth, this fearless girl got up with her band and belted out potential hit after hit. 鈥, 鈥樷, 鈥 鈥 whilst they might be a little overlooked in favour of their more famous peers, these songs are as iconic of the era as anything else. Far from being a curious little oddity, X-Ray Spex were one of the most important of the first wave of punk bands, and left their mark upon the charts and their peers.
Perhaps more crucially, Poly Styrene proved that you could do just what you wanted to, provided you had the determination and the creativity to do so. In an industry dominated by sexism, she never let her gender be an issue, almost becoming a punk first, a girl second. And in doing so, she provided inspiration to a whole generation of girls, who looked at her and stopped being 鈥榝emale musicians鈥, and simply became 鈥榤usicians鈥.
So goodbye, Poly Styrene. You will be missed, but your young punx are still out there, sticking it together.
Steven Rainey
Comments Post your comment