Germ Free Adolescents

Product Information

NOFX – Germ Free Adolescents (X-Ray Spex cover) Lyrics – SongMeanings". SongMeanings . Retrieved 4 July 2018. Due to this obsession, she sees in a boy “cleanliness,” and is attracted to him for that reason. Cleanliness in this song denotes the expectation of physical and sexual “purity” for women and girls. This could also signify the subject’s age; puberty is often thought of as gross, and society deems bodies and bodily functions as inherently dirty or disgusting. The song hints towards the girl’s abnegation of her body as it is changing and growing. X-Ray Spex: Germfree Adolescents". Uncut. p.132. [T]he heat and intensity of this debut has never been repeated. Nearly 30 years after it was recorded, Germfree Adolescents is as timely as ever. MercuryPrize (15 September 2014). "FKA twigs Q&A – 2014 Mercury Prize". Archived from the original on 13 December 2021 – via YouTube.

The album’s focus on feminism, identity issues, and mass consumerism is prophetic in the issues discussed in the 2010s, with the song “Identity” being a particular heavy hitter with lyrics such as Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrateded.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p.344. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.X-Ray Spex weren’t revolutionary fellow travelers like the Sandinista fans in The Clash, nor were they indiscriminate nihilists like the Sex Pistols. X-Ray Spex were political in the way that Marshall McLuhan was political, less concerned with whoever’s in power at the moment than the capitalist system, and the insidious ways it controls ordinary peoples’ lives. This dystopian, almost sci-fi streak is most prevalent on “The Day The World Turned Dayglo”; opening with chugging power chords and a wailing sax riff, the song lives up to its B-movie title with Poly’s vision of a world where even the trees are artificial: “The X-rays were penetrating / Through the latex breeze / Synthetic fiber see-thru leaves / Fell from the rayon trees.” In an age of burgeoning A.I. and rampant outsourcing, the sci-fi poetry of “Genetic Engineering” is even more prophetic, as Poly declares that “genetic engineering could create the perfect race… could exterminate/introducing worker clones/as our subordinated slave.” Her grim propositions have lost none of their daunting edge. Punks were screaming “NO FUTURE,” and fair enough, but Poly went further, deeper; her songs dared to imagine just how bad hellish normalization could be. And here we are. Staunton, Terry (May 2009). "X-Ray Spex – Germ Free Adolescents: Deluxe Edition". Record Collector. No.362 . Retrieved 5 September 2016. In an interview after being shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, British artist FKA Twigs named Germfree Adolescents her favourite album of all time [25] In July of 1976, Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, a Scottish-Somali girl from London’s inner-city Brixton district, celebrated her 19th birthday by going to see the Sex Pistols. Marianne dropped out of school at age 15, and had spent the last few years drifting between music festivals, crash pads, and recording studios in an attempt to get her music career off of the ground. She had even released a single, a novelty reggae song called “ Silly Billy,” with Donna Summer’s U.K. distributor, GTO Records. But she was frustrated—frustrated with not being taken seriously as a musician, and frustrated by the racism, sexism, and classism that seemed to make achieving her dreams impossible.

Sheffield, Rob (1995). "X-Ray Spex". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. p.441. ISBN 0-679-75574-8. In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 354 in their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. [23] Cover versions and cultural references [ edit ] X-Ray Spex: Germfree Adolescents". Mojo. p.131. The band's entire studio output in just over an hour... Robbins, Ira (7 August 1992). "Germfree Adolescents". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 17 November 2016 . Retrieved 5 September 2016.Dolan, Jon (May 2001). "The 50 Most Essential Punk Records – 5. X-Ray Spex: Germfree Adolescents". Spin. Vol.17, no.5. p.108 . Retrieved 23 October 2020. Long-running California punk band NOFX has performed a cover version of Germfree Adolescents live. [24] Christgau, Robert (26 April 2011). "Poly Styrene, Punk Pioneer, Dies at 53". NPR . Retrieved 23 October 2020.

In 1994, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music named Germfree Adolescents the eighth best punk album of all time. [19] Seven years later, in May 2001, Spin magazine ranked the album at number five on its "50 Most Essential Punk Records" list. [20] In March 2003, Mojo magazine ranked the record at number 19 on its "Top 50 Punk Albums" list. [21] Germfree Adolescents is listed in the reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. [22] Germfree Adolescents erupts like a moralistic maelstrom, a fiery distillation of a highly-involved period, when stranded youth and socioeconomic politics ran into one another at full speed. Class warfare, sexism, ethical vacancy, a chronically-declining industry and the ensuing joblessness and ‘brain drain,’ and just about every other deficit that plagued urbanized living as Britain transitioned from the discontented Heath administration into the first Thatcher era, all get carbonized and spat out in the record’s every vitriolic line. In that, despite their sonic allegiances, the Spex would feel distanced from first-wave punks and ply closer to the Oi movement and skinhead ska, which championed the working class, all the while gnashing their teeth down against racial and gender divides and loss of identity. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. Dimery, Robert, ed. (2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (revised and updateded.). Universe Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7893-2074-2. When you look in the mirror do you see yourself?/Do you see yourself on the T.V. screen?/Do you see yourself in the magazine/When you see yourself does it make you scream?

Catalog

When sounding off the first classics that came to be of punk, especially ones led and forged by women, Germfree Adolescents by X-Ray Spex stands as a bit of an oddity. Never as blatantly discordant as Crass, and musically much more muscular than The Slits, the Spex carved one near-perfect album of artful revolt, a rough and turbulent lament of social inequity in the metropolis. Vexed, stylishly raw and supremely agile, there isn’t a record like it out there.