9. X Ray SpexGerm Free Adolescents
Marion aka Poly Styrene had such a distinctive way of being and singing. She had a real vibrato to her voice which was never irritating, and she was completely unmanufactured. She was what she was and she pulled absolutely no punches and she could see the world for all its artificiality but she still brought the best out of it. How she managed to come up with that record, at that time, I have absolutely no idea as it is streets ahead of any of the other punk albums of the time.
I wasn’t a punk. I was more interested in selling the Workers Press in Coventry. I thought a lot of punk was just rock music played really badly. It wasn’t anything different from what had gone before. It was just less bloated and wore a different fashion sensibility. I was far more interested in reggae and what it was offering, but I saw them on Top Of The Pops and there she was, a young mixed race girl, not that different to me, but with a different perspective on life to me. It was illuminating.
