X-Ray Spex at CBGB’s, New York. March 1978.
Back row, L-R: Chrissie Hyde, Debbie Harry, Viv Albertine, Siouxsie Sioux
Front row, L-R: Poly Styrene, Pauline Black. 1977
Marion Elliot, in the late ’70s. Lead singer of X-Ray Spex, one of the first female-fronted punk bands. Nicknamed herself “Poly Styrene.”
“By not being thin, white, or conventionally “feminine,” Styrene’s mere presence in a rock band was enough to challenge convention, and her songs, which cheerfully attacked the materialism of the modern world, added to that challenge.”
-Gillian G. Garr, She’s a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll
