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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ROSE-TINTED SPEX,
By
This review is from: Germ Free Adolescents (Audio CD)
You reach a certain age, you've done a few things in your life, you're relatively 'comfortable'...then you get the urge to 'go back' and discover what all the fuss was about, re-acquaint yourself with the sounds that informed your youth - the ones you didn't keep in touch with - and see at the same time if your memory's not seriously out of kilter. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't...
'GERM FREE ADOLESCENTS' by X-Ray Spex always shone out for 'Identity' and 'Oh! Bondage Up Yours!', but I remember being pretty indifferent to the remaining tracks on their one and only album. Wrong. Taken as a whole, it's a superb thing of its time. Poly Styrene (c/w a don't-give-a-toss-what-you-think punk moniker, ah bless) may have sung with a voice designed to curdle milk but there's no escaping the pure energy of her performance, including some marvellous Johnny rrrRotten-like vocal phrasing. The fact that she also wrote every song on the album is an amazing revelation, especially when you consider how thin on the ground female contemporaries were at such a musically explosive point in history. Of course there were exceptions, but not to this degree. The girl was a bona-fide all round frontman and no mistake. Aided by some decent guitar, bass, drums and limited keyboard, songs such as 'Art-I-Ficial', I Am A Cliche', 'The Day The World Turned DayGlo', 'Plastic Bag' and 'Genetic Engineering' kick, scream and squeak their way into the consciousness, if anything sounding more fresh today than they did back then. It's a bit of an irony, therefore, that bandmember Laura Logic's sax - in beefing up the basic punk rock sound - manages occasionally to recall the ghost of (deep breath) GLAM rock. Fortunately, (and thankfully) her contributions are, on the whole, too gritty to throw any serious anachronistic spanners into the works. Bonus Tracks and Peel Sessions complete the album - literally - and represent X-Ray Spex's total recorded output. Sad, in one way, as we have nothing to assess regarding musical progression and what might have been, post punk. But good in another, because what we do have, however small, is very good indeed. The germ (and snot and gob) free Marion Elliot of today should be proud of her legacy. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Old Punk-ish Classic!,
By
This review is from: Germ Free Adolescents (Audio CD)
The release of this album on CD has been long overdue. This is the unique sound created by 'X-Ray Spex' - a band from 1978 who should have been more successful than they actually were. Way ahead of their time, it was fascinating how something so out of tune could have sounded so 'tuneful'! Three hit singles were spawned from this - including the memorable classic: Germ Free Adolescence'. With the exception of this, many of the lyrics are indistinguishable, but the sound is so unique this hardly matters. It was once said at the time that 'Poly Styrene' had a voice like a flat tyre with a slow puncture - judge for yourself, but what great stuff! I think I saw this band first perform an a late night show (could've been 'The Whistle Test' but am unsure after so many years) A dozen nice short tracks on this, and not overlong as is so common in this music genre. This was done as a limited edition on grey vinyl for those of you who are collectors out there!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Charming punk,
By
This review is from: Germ Free Adolescents (Audio CD)
Bursting on the scene in 1977, X-Ray Spex were one of the most unusual and colourful bands of the British punk explosion. Like their contemporaries Siouxsie And The Banshees, they had a female lead singer: the eccentric Poly Styrene with her charming dress sense. The original band consisted of Poly, Lora Logic (sax), Jack Stafford (guitar), Paul Dean (bass) and BP Hurding (drums). The Spex were first and foremost a singles band and made the UK charts with the angry anthemic Oh Bondage Up Yours and more pop-like numbers like The Day The World Turned Dayglo and Identity. The title track Germ Free Adolescents is a lovely melodic ballad on which Poly actually sings instead of screeches. This album includes other treasures like Genetic Engineering, Warrior In Woolworths and I'm A Poseur. I found the music more cute than threatening or angst-ridden like some other punk music, and still enjoyable after all these years. For a more comprehensive compilation, I recommend Let's Submerge: The Anthology, as it contains multiple versions of their most memorable songs plus other single releases, like Highly Inflammable, that are not represented here.
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