Scrub Away Scrub Away Scrub Away

X Rat Spex : Germ Free Adolescents

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On November 10, 1978 X Ray Spex released their only studio album, Germ Free Adolescents. Spin Magazine's Alternative Record Guide calls the album essential, with Rob Sheffield writing "Germfree Adolescents is so exhilarating, so inspiring, so fun, it naturally took fourteen years to get released in America." Mellower and more melodic than the singles we've featured here so far ( "Oh Bondage , Up Yours", "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" and "Art-I-Ficial"), the songs whizz by with images of Woolworth's , deodorant and fast food.

Saxophone player Lara Logic had already left by the time Germfree Adolescents was released. By the end of the year singer Poly Styrene had broken up the band, claiming to have suffered a nervous breakdown after a visit by UFOs. She would join the Krishna Consciousness movement. Bassist Paul Dean would join Loverboy, for fucks sake. ** (I stand corrected on this but of info which I got from Rob Sheffield's review for the Spin Alternative Record Guide). There is a Paul Dean who plays with Loverboy but he's a British Columbia native, not a British Punk native.

The Crisis Can't You See

X Ray Spex : Identity

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On June 13, 1978 X Ray Spex released their new single, the future U.K. #24 hit  "Identity". The lyrics reveal singer/songwriter  Poly Styrene's struggles with her new found fame as a feminist punk hero as well as her distrust of consumerism. Having punk audiences spit at her probably didn't help matters. During rehearsals for a UK  tour, she collapsed. The tour went on but by 1979, Poly Styrene had had enough, ending one of punk rock's most colorful bands.

Perspex Window Panes

X Ray Spex : The Day the Earth Turned Day-Glo

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"I try to make people fink." 

-Poly Styrene

In March of 1978, X Ray Spex released their second single, the U.K. #23 "The Day The Earth Turned Day-Glo". Six months after "Oh Bondage Up Yours", Poly Styrene is again belting out a song about commercialism run amuck.

I clambered over mounds and mounds

 Of polystyrene foam

 And fell into a swimming pool

 Filled with fairy snow 

Little did she know day-glo fashions were on their way back. By the mid 80's grown men were wearing Izod shirts and cargo pants the color of neon vomit.

Chain Gang Chain Mail

X Ray Spex : Oh Bondage Up Yours

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On September 30, 1977 X Ray Spex released its debut single "Oh Bondage Up Yours" b/w "I Am A Cliche". The band was led by an irrepressible half Somali songwriter and vocalist who called herself Poly Styrene. She opens the song with  "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard" before belting out  "But I think OH BONDAGE! UP YOURS! 1-2-3-4" and keeps on belting at the top her voice while Lora Logic's in-and-out-of-tune saxophone keeps her company.

Despite the line "Bind me, tie me, chain me to the wall / I wanna be a slave to you all!" the "bondage" she sings of has nothing to do with sadomasochism, which was part of the punk fashion at the time.

I came from a religious background, and it's in the scriptures, the whole idea of being liberated is to come free from the bondage of the material world. At that stage I hadn't gone into  the spiritual aspect of bondage. I hadn't gone that far. I certainly had an idea of bondage-- those images from history of the suffragettes chaining themselves to walls, or slaves being chained up, were what I was thinking of.

While the song  and its B side "I Am A Cliche" were--and still are-- cheered by critics, "Oh Bondage, Up Yours" failed to make the U.K. charts.