I clambered over mounds and mounds
Of polystyrene foam
Then fell into a swimming pool
Filled with fairy snow
And watched the world turn
Day-glo you know you know
The world turned day-glo you know
I wrenched the nylon curtains back
As far as they would go
Then peered through perspex window panes
At the acrylic road
I drove my polypropolene car
On wheels of sponge
Then pulled into a wimpy bar
To have a rubber bun
The x-rays were penetrating
Through the latex breeze
Synthetic fibre see-thru leaves
Fell from the rayon trees
X-Ray Spex, ‘The Day The World Turned Dayglo’
If you’re an anarchist or simply can’t stand the monarchy and you’re living in London, the last few weeks – or rather the last few months – must have been like torture for you. The focus on the Royal Wedding and the speculations on the wedding dress have been taking so much space on the British and international media that nothing else – not even the Libyan situation – seems relevant.
What’s worse, though, the streets full of tremendously tacky souvenirs or the way superficial women’s magazines have turned Kate Middleton into the next icon of style, talking about her trend-setting potential as if she were a packet of shares and not a human being (apparently sales of knee-high boots soared in April, because of Middleton’s passion for boots – dear oh dear…)?
Monarchy seems to have successfully repackaged itself: it looks younger and cooler, with more supporters based all over the world ready to celebrate in front of their television sets and computer screens as if they had been invited to the party and fewer people expressing dissent, their voices muffled by the brain dead media still worrying about a wedding dress.
Surrounded by such Royal Family-induced dementia, it’s natural to long for punks and rebels to be back and wish above all that women’s magazines would make the effort of looking for credible “icons of life”, rather than vapid icons of style or for the next “people’s princess” to kill.
London doesn’t need a princess, London (and the rest of the world) needs an army of feminist punk icons, like the late Poly Styrene.
There have been quite a few features written about the punk pioneer after it was announced that Poly Styrene had died of breast cancer last Monday evening at the age of 53.
Born in 1957, from a Scottish-Irish mother and a dispossessed Somali aristocrat father, Marianne Joan Elliott-Said displayed a passion for music from a young age. Running away from home at 15, she started singing in the mid-to-late 70s. In the September 1976 issue of punk zine Sniffin’ Glue, a review of Poli Styrene Jass Band’s [sic] single “Drano in Your Veins” (Mustard) read: “This is a weird item from a band I know nothing about. The B-side ‘Circus Highlights’ is pretty good. Get it as ‘Rock on’ if you dig sixties type punk-rock (…) it sounds like the Floyd in ’67 here and there…”
In the same year after watching the Sex Pistols playing on Hastings Pier, she formed X-Ray Spex, becoming famous for her unconventional look (complete of wire braces…) and commitment to punk aesthetic, but also for her views about stereotypical beauty, consumerism ("I live off you, and you live off me/And the whole world lives off of everybody/See we're gonna be exploited/by somebody, by somebody…"), identity and fame ("When you look in the mirror/Do you see yourself/Do you see yourself/On the TV screen/Do you see yourself in the magazine/When you see yourself/Does it make you scream?”), while one of the most famous tracks by X-Ray Specs, 1977 single ‘Oh Bondage, Up Yours!’, featured the opening line "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard".
Poly Styrene’s dynamism and energy was embodied by her punkish style and her stage attire that featured army helmets, Lurex dresses or mismatched clothes in clashing nuances such as turquoise and acid green. In a nutshell, she was the antithesis of today’s immaculately styled plastic and vapid music icons à la Lady Gaga, more interested in selling clothes and accessories (or in achieving an unholy commercial marriage between fashion houses and music…) than in selling music.
In 1978 the band took part in the Rock Against Racism concert at Victoria Park and released in the same year their debut album, “Germ Free Adolescents” that also featured the single "The Day The World Turned Dayglo", probably one of the very first records about the damages synthetic materials have been doing to our planet, our lives and our minds.
Poly Styrene left the band in 1979 and released a solo album, “Translucence” the following year. In the early ‘80s she joined the Hare Krishna movement, while X-Ray Spex re-emerged in the ‘90s when they played a sold-out gig at London’s Brixton Academy and in 1995 with the release of the album “Conscious Consumer”. In 2004, Poly Styrene released another solo album “Flower Aeroplane”, followed by last month’s "Generation Indigo".
Like the late Ari Up from The Slits, Poly Styrene represents a generation of rebel women often ahead of their times who managed to influence and inspire other people with their style, music and lyrics attacking consumerism, materialism and the plastic, synthetic and pathetic world we’re living in. Thank God, like all ordinary human beings even the members of Royal families die, but good ideas and rebel ideals never do.
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