Germ Free Adolescents

Product Information

Despite her relatively short stint with the band, Styrene's overt feminism and mixed-race heritage marked her out among her punk contemporaries and won her legions of fans for generations to come. Beth Ditto, singer with Gossip, said: "Poly Styrene [was] so ahead of her time. She recreated punk." Du Noyer, Paul (1998). Encyclopedia of Albums: 1,000 Best-Ever Albums . Bristol: Dempsey Parr. p.89. ISBN 1-84084-031-5. They aimed their fluorescent bile at the vapidity and sterility of the modern world, specifically the increasingly consumerist nature of society, in classic sax-drenched anthems Are you ready to fly?". The Guardian. 9 May 2003. Archived from the original on 18 February 2006 . Retrieved 21 June 2021.

The moment I heard that Marianne Elliott-Said, AKA Poly Styrene, had died, I was at band practice. We put on X-Ray Spex and jumped around, screaming along to Identity, Oh Bondage Up Yours! and Germ Free Adolescents. On that day in 2011 we lost one of punk’s greatest heroes and one of the few who really looked and sounded like me. She broke the mould of UK punk stereotypes. She was brown, chubby, weirdly dressed and had braces on her teeth. Even in an era when quirky, abrasive style was all the rage, she stood out.On 28 April 2008, Poly Styrene gave a performance of "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" in front of more than 10,000 people at the Love Music Hate Racism free concert in Victoria Park, East London. [ citation needed] The same reviewer in The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music sums up the band's 1970s contribution as "one of the most inventive, original and genuinely exciting groups to emerge during the punk era". [33] Reformation [ edit ]

In public, Poly Styrene and her bandmates put forth a playful image of happy pigs heading to the self-aware synthetic slaughter. But in private, the band’s meteoric rise to fame was starting to weigh on its leader. In 2017, Poly’s daughter, Celeste Bell, wrote in The Guardian, “I wonder if my mum might have had a happier life if she hadn’t had that level of fame,” a question that’s all but answered by this classic introvert statement Poly made in 1978: “You feel all the time that people are draining you, draining off your energy all the time until you think, ‘Blimey, I haven’t got anything left to give. Leave me alone.’”

Tracklist

Pelly, Jenn (15 January 2017). "X-Ray Spex: Germfree Adolescents". Pitchfork . Retrieved 15 January 2017. Robbins, Ira (7 August 1992). "Germfree Adolescents". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 17 November 2016 . Retrieved 5 September 2016. X-Ray Spex: Germfree Adolescents". Mojo. p.131. The band's entire studio output in just over an hour... Due to this obsession, she sees in a boy “cleanliness,” and is attracted to him for that reason. Cleanliness in this song denotes the expectation of physical and sexual “purity” for women and girls. This could also signify the subject’s age; puberty is often thought of as gross, and society deems bodies and bodily functions as inherently dirty or disgusting. The song hints towards the girl’s abnegation of her body as it is changing and growing. Her inspiring story encapsulates what should be the legacy of punk: not simply spiky rebelliousness, but a self-aware sensitivity to the world that can help shape how we navigate the music industry and our lives as a whole. I Am a Cliche shows how Poly’s innate sensitivity was often misunderstood and exploited – yet for me she remains a radiant symbol of defiance, luminous rage and joy. I believe that she dreamed of reaching a higher level of consciousness through art and wanted to examine a more spiritual route to identity. Her music and lyrics transcended the everyday, stretching the limits of the imagination.

a b c Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p.612. ISBN 1-904994-10-5. Long-running California punk band NOFX has performed a cover version of Germfree Adolescents live. [24] NOFX – Germ Free Adolescents (X-Ray Spex cover) Lyrics – SongMeanings". SongMeanings . Retrieved 4 July 2018.In an age of burgeoning A.I. and rampant outsourcing, the sci-fi poetry of “Genetic Engineering” is even more prophetic, as Poly declares that “genetic engineering could create the perfect race… could exterminate/introducing worker clones/as our subordinated slave.” Her grim propositions have lost none of their daunting edge. Punks were screaming “NO FUTURE,” and fair enough, but Poly went further, deeper; her songs dared to imagine just how bad hellish normalization could be. And here we are. Live @ the Roundhouse London 2008 (November 2009: Year Zero, YZCDDVD01); CD and DVD of live recordings from September 2008

MercuryPrize (15 September 2014). "FKA twigs Q&A – 2014 Mercury Prize". Archived from the original on 13 December 2021 – via YouTube. Germfree Adolescents (November 1978: EMI International, INT 3023) – No. 30 UK Albums Chart, [41] No. 56 AUS [42] Hiljaiset Levyt: PUNKNET 77 - 100 Best Punk LP's". Hiljaiset.sci.fi. 4 March 1996. Archived from the original on 22 November 2007 . Retrieved 29 June 2014.Larkin, Colin (1994). All Time Top 1000 Albums . Enfield: Guinness Publishing. p.236. A colourful explosion of sound In an interview after being shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, British artist FKA Twigs named Germfree Adolescents her favourite album of all time [25]