Not 6 months ago, I was talking about the death and influence of Ari Up on the world of punk rock. This week, we lost another innovator and influences for women in the punk rock movement. Poly Styrene of The X-Ray Spex. In today's world where women are given more of a fair shake in rock and roll, it's easy to forget how segregated things were in the 70s. If you were a woman in music, you were usually a pop singer, a piano player/jazz singer, or a groupie. The punk movement was more inclusive, women and men were treated equally. Among the most important women bands to come out of the UK punk scene were The Slits, Siouxsee and the Banshess and X-Ray Spex.
Poly Styrene (born Marian Elliot-Said) was double ostracized, being a woman, and being from half British/half Somali descent. X-Ray Spex played a noisy, post-punk tinged version of punk that reverberated through the underground scene. Her abrasive and screaming style of singing inspired the Riot Grrl movement. If there were no Poly Styrene, there would be no Sleater-Kinney, no L7, no Gossip, no Le Tigre.
Like a lot punk bands, X-Ray Spex had a very short career, only releasing one album, Germ Free Adolescents. Styrene released a couple of solo albums over the years. Her last, Generation Indigo, was released a day before her death on April 25, 2011 of breast cancer. She was 53.
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