X-Ray Spex singer Poly Styrene r.i.p.

http://loudersoft.com/7484/rip-poly-styrene/

shit... Oh cancer, up yours

Yes very much up yours. RIP, we'll miss you. :-(

Here's another thread where we curse Cancer. RIP

Aww RIP. Such a great voice.

didn't realize she would have been 20 in 1977. I dunno if the other Spex were younger, but photos of the band made me think they were closer to 16 than 20 in their heyday.

christ. r.i.p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue5jyj_nosc

probly still my favourite

RIP Poly. So glad I went to the reunion gig a few years ago. She looked so great then too.

Tragic. RIP Poly.

One of THE great voices in popular music history. RIP

Aw, I was hoping to wake up this morning and find out I'd been foolish to start this thread. :(

cancer.grrrr. RIP

RIP

RIP

Maura remembers.

fucking sucks. RIP Poly

Anything that still matters to me about punk was embodied in Poly Styrene.

Kathleen Hanna.

Just... :(

rip

Aw no! I literally found out TWO HOURS AGO about the new album, played & quite liked, and searched "styrene" to see if anything was said about it on here... RIP Poly :(

Everything I read about her over the years suggests she was a decent human being, sad to read about this, the piece in the guardian a while ago made it sound like it was bad, but not hopeless.

Great powerful, foghorn blast of a voice on those old recordings, this is awesome:

http://youtu.be/OGcWtPOL6aQ

She made me feel better about my teenage orthodontia. RIP Poly.

Just wanted to save this photo for posterity that Dangerous Minds used:

http://www.dangerousminds.net/images/uploads/poly.jpg

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/poly_styrene_r.i.p/

Also, Nitsuh's piece is wonderful.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/04/poly-styrene.html

It's a good piece. Not sure about the 'great women of post-punk' idea, though. Siouxsie, Ari and Poly were very much class-of-76 and mobilised by the Pistols gigs of early that year, even if it took them all 2-3 years to get records out. You might call some Banshees and Slits records 'post-punk' but they were solidly rooted in the ethos of London 1976. Delta 5 and the Au Pairs were provincial 3rd-wave 1979ers and of course much more overtly political and serious.

But yes, RIP. It's a real tragedy - she was a true original.

Dr.C! Good to see you here, though for an understandably sad reason. And that's an interesting detail you bring up; it's always seemed much more blurred over here/to a later generation.

I think it's reasonably straightforward to recognise those that came in xxx's wake but weren't directly influenced by xxx, but whoever xxx were influenced by as well.

i.e. as opposed to the bandwagon-jumpers, and those that could do their make-up "just like Siouxsie"

Hi Ned :) I still look in once in a while just to keep an eye on things :)

I'm also not sure about the 'great women of post punk' idea either. There's a tendency to group female artists together (or in other combinations such including as Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith) when what they have most in common is that they are women and quite different as artists.

I think the intimation (at the time) was that the majority of women in "rock" before that were 'similar'...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNT-uOi5gWo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFq3anDYEqM&feature=related

Grouping together Chrissie Hynde, Debby Harry, Viv Albertine, Siouxie Sioux, Poly Styrene and Pauline Black has a long history, literally

http://wewantnothing.tumblr.com/post/4951581733/divas-chrissie-hynde-debby-harry-viv-albertine

Ha! - I was listening to Silly Billy this morning. It was mixed in with a load of X-Ray Spex tracks on my ipod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGROSJbCPV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQm8eCfDKrI

this woman was able to project so much emotion through her voice, it leaps and bounds off of the records. so inspirational.

RIP

Agreed about one of the great voices obv, but also 1 x great LYRICIST to my mind. A thing I was surprised by when finding teh ilx @ abt 2001-2 was that people seemed to think maybe she was a bit urm "didactic" about what she thought and ideology and stuff -- while me I'd cherished the songs for being open-ended in any meaning, twasnt clear to which degree did she pose herself as an opponent vs part of what she (surely, possibly or not at all) railed against? I wanna be a frozen pea! Maybe "irony" was just a given in 1978 and/or 2001?

That were many words; in few words: great great LYRICIST.

Um I see I wasn't extremely clear there... Example:

Genetic engineering
Could create the perfect race
Could create an unknown life-force
That could us exterminate*

Introducing worker clone
As our subordinated slave
His expertise proficiency
Will surely dig our grave

Interpretation a) oh no genetic engineering is scary and bad!
Interpretation b) hi dere I just wrote a hopefully fun scifi pome to go with a song hurrah!

... and I would tend twds b).

*) This is a bit of a clunker I must admit.

Think you are otm, Ole.

Why does no one ever talk about Translucence? I get that it pales in comparison to her more famous work, but it's really lovely, although the energy is the polar opposite of her work with the Spex. I have yet to dig any further into her solo work, but I'm glad I discovered this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OsuSShRmSY

RIP

Just watched that BBC broadcast from '79, "Who Is Poly Styrene?" (on YouTube). I found it difficult to pick up on all the voice-over commentary. Great document, but I did find it all a little depressing.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/05/lets-submerge

I contributed to Kickstarter a few years ago for a documentary involving Poly Styrene's daughter. Still waiting--hope it didn't get derailed.

*sigh*

clemenza, this article mentions your documentary being still in production. Seems like an interesting approach. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidchiu/2019/10/14/poly-styrene-punk-icon-biography-dayglo/#4d2f69ef3685

Meanwhile, a documentary about Styrene directed by Paul Sng (which involves both Howe and Bell) is currently in production. “Its angle is more of a communication between daughter and mother,” Howe says of the film, “with the story unfolding via letters from Celeste to Poly amid interviews threaded throughout. Some of the interviewees appear in both projects, some exclusively were for the book. The letters also appear in adapted or expanded forms in the book, too.”

Yama yama yama!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXVEEwBEDcY

Would like to see this doc living online, growing changing grooving over the years---would it get too set in its ways, and/or break sideways, become something xtreme, come home again--? This and/or another doc.

Seems plausible enough:

Introducing worker clone
As our subordinated slave
His expertise proficiency
Will surely dig our grave

Maybe not dig it all, but at least take the handle for a while.

they are 100% "class of 77" punk to me, the LP is a bit more filled out in sound but all the lyrics are like ur-punk Rosetta stones

can I watch this now btw? where?

I guess the (excellent) title song of their first album is sort of new-wavey, but I count them as ground-zero punk, just like everyone else on the The Roxy London WC2 album, even if some of them like the Buzzcocks and Wire proceeded in different directions.

xpost upthread:

If you are outside the UK you will be able to watch the film very soon; we are working with international partners to bring the film to the US, Europe and beyond. As soon as we have more information on international screenings as well as DVDs and Bluray DVDs we will let you know (an email will be sent to check we have your current address). The film will also be screened at several film festivals around the world throughout 2021, the first of which will be SXSW, March 16-20. We will announce the full festival line-up very soon.

That said one wonders if VPNs could help with this:

https://www.modernfilms.com/polystyrene/watch

Sky Arts showed it last night in the UK which might mean it gets a repeat in the middle of the night over teh next couple of weeks, Might not. Worked with the Rob lloyd film anyway

it's on again friday (along with the Rock against Racism thing that was shown after it which also features Poly and was worth a watch if you needed reminding how racist the late 70s were)

I think I taped the 2 of those and teh damned thing taht was on after the RAR . Haven't checked tehy all came out yet though. may be low on space

The Rock Against Racism one looked a bit like it was produced by the propaganda wing of the SWP but was useful for showing that, despite what a lot of people seem to think now, punk and punk rockers were, for the most part, very much on the right side of history. As did the Poly Styrene doc.

My sister was at the Victoria Park gig... but so were a lot of other people!

Translucence is on Spotify. Probably never looked for it or under teh name Poly Styrene until now.
There's also a much later solo lp up there.
The Pre X Ray Spex single was included on ana anthology some years ago too so may be up there somewhere too.

That newer one, Generation Indigo, was released right around when she died. It's pretty good!

Just rewatched this and liked it a lot more. I think I was feeling too restless to appreciate it fully last week.

The archive footage and photography in general is very good. There’s something about a lot of the voices that still feels a bit flat and lifeless.

i liked that they broke away from the normal talking head presentation these docs usually have and didn't show the heads. it didn't feel flat to me but perhaps that's what made it seem flat?

US screening is happening! Online via the SFFILM Festival, get a ticket now

https://sffilm.org/event/poly-styrene-i-am-a-cliche/

Excellent doc!

Now streaming!

Amazing

Amazing

connection issues, sorry for double post.

One post for each strand of the double helix.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/arts/music/poly-styrene-i-am-a-cliche-documentary.html

I liked this, but I may have built up unrealistic expectations over time. I was surprised, checking my email, it was only 2017 when they started crowdfunding--feels like farther back than that. I know her daughter initiated, wrote, and directed the film, but I didn't find her segments especially compelling. I found the 40-minute BBC documentary, Who Is Poly Styrene? (still on YouTube), more moving. On a positive note, I spent the first half wondering why they hadn't used the amazing Top of the Pops clip of "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo," then almost the whole thing turned up. And although this was the second documentary in a row I'd seen with Thurston Moore holding court (right after Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child), his "Oh Bondage" story is a good one.

Thurston Moore is the alt-Bono.

Indeed