Friday night woman who rocks

Because I am in a great mood, I'm putting up one of my all-time favorite singers--Poly Styrene of the X-Ray Spex. The English punk band only had one real album--Germfree Adolescents, but it's a keeper. Alas, I didn't discover this band until I was out of high school, which is just as well, because I might have over-related.

They were one of the best bands at straddling the line between noisy and melodic that makes punk so fun to listen to. Friends of mine who find my taste in music grating and loud always still find that they like the X-Ray Spex. And they were kind of weird, too, with the wailing saxophone and guitar making all sorts of really energizing noise. They managed to both play really pretty slower songs and fast, loud punk with lyrics that are a bit alarming coming from what were in fact adolescents.

And Poly Styrene really rivets your attention to herself immediately. She was the first of the wailing females of punk rock--loud and unapologetic, but also capable of singing some of the slower songs with a biting irony. In all honesty, the only one who's come close is Kathleen Hanna. While there was certainly women in punk rock around that time, they were mostly there on men's terms. Poly just ignored that and kicked down the door and announced herself, not holding back her talent, anger, or humor in any weak effort to be appropriately feminine. Listening to the X-Ray Spex for the first time really is a revelation--if nothing else, you walk away realizing that not only is there no reason for women not to be in punk, but you suspect that women will save it from itself. That this has been proven time and again isn't surprising to fans of the X-Ray Spex.

If you've never heard them, at least scrounge up a couple of their "hit" song "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!" to get the full force of Poly's angry/fun/funny singing.