X-Ray Spex were punk's ultimate coffee achievers;their tunes were wound tight enough to make the Buzzcocks sound like the Doobie Brothers.The hero of the story was Poly Styrene,a racially mixed London teen with braces who proclaimed, "I am a poseur and i don't care/I like to make people stare!"Styrene began X-Ray Spex's debut single by mumbling, "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard,but i think . . .Oh bondage up yours!"Styrene's screech and Lora Logic's saxophone baited each other through the careering quitars,both women sounding bored and ready to explode.On "Germfree Adolescent","Styrene toys with her shrill voice the same way she toys with her bubblegum melodies,flashing them as emblems of an exuberant worldliness.Her songs are about,well,stuff-latex,acrylic,plastic popper beads,deadorant,fast food,fast drummers."Art-I-Ficial", "Plastic Bag",and "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" detour the waste products of industrial culture into props for one loud Typperware party.And although Styrene cheerfully includes herself as one of these waste products ("I wanna be instamatic/I wanna be a frozen pea"),anybody who tries to tell her she's nobody gets slapped with her pet rat."Germfree Adolescents" is so exhilarating,so inspiring,so . . .fun.
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