Who is singer Poly Styrene?

But for younger readers we are happy to offer you this introduction, or for those who perhaps follow the adage that if you remember the punk scene you weren’t really there, an aide-memoire.

A singer of a distinction in voice, appearance and legacy, Poly Styrene was catapulted into the nation’s conscience as front woman of punk outfit X-Ray Spex. Ten years on from her unfortunate death from cancer, a new documentary, co-produced by her daughter Celeste Bell and Paul Sng is set to go beneath the surface of this iconic performer.

And so in nine short paragraphs, and a touch of archive footage, allow us to provide that surface, and let you familiarise yourself with a remarkable talent you’ll definitely want to know more about.

She grew up in late 1960s, early 1970s South London

Marianne Joan Elliott-Said (not yet Poly Styrene) was born in Bromley in 1957; her mother a Scottish-Irish legal secretary and her father a Somali dock-worker – although throughout her life Elliott would often tell press he was a member of Somali aristocracy. Raised by her mother in Brixton she embraced hippie counterculture and at 15 ran away from home to hitchhike from one music festival to another. When her travelling came to an abrupt end – she had to be treated for septicemia after stepping on a rusty nail in a stream – she turned first to fashion, and then to music.

She first recorded as a reggae artist

Well, reggae on the cusp of ska to be more accurate. In 1976, then still performing under (a shortened version of) her own name, Mari Elliott recorded her first single, ‘Silly Billy’. Released alongside a B-side co-written by Elliott, titled ‘What a Way’, ‘Silly Billy’ has since been likened to Althea and Donna’s popular 1978 number one ‘Uptown Top Ranking’.

The Sex Pistols inspired her to form a band

On her 18th birthday Elliott saw a formative Sex Pistols perform in an empty hall on Hastings Pier. It may not sound like a particularly inspirational occasion, but it was this gig that gave Elliott the spark to form her own band, and so just days later she placed an ad in the music papers that called for ‘young punx who want to stick it together’.

‘They had drainpipes, shortish hair, and played covers. But they must have had something because I thought, ‘I can do that!’

Poly Styrene in an April 2011 interview with The Guardian

She’s the first woman of colour in the UK to front a successful rock band

That small ad brought together guitarist Jak Airport (Jack Stafford), bassist Paul Dean, drummer Paul ‘B.P.’ Hurding and 15-year-old saxophonist Lora Logic (Susan Whitby), and X-Ray Spex were born. The complete piece of the jigsaw being Elliott, or as she would now be forever known Poly Styrene, after choosing her stage name from the Yellow Pages, during a hunt for something ‘of the time, something plastic’.

Her band’s flame shone brightly, but burned quickly

Formed at the start of 1977, in only their second ever gig X-Ray Spex played the renowned punk night at The Roxy. And by September of that year they had released their first single, ‘Oh Bondage Up Yours!’, which though banned by the BBC was well received by fans and critics. In mid 1979, after four further singles and one much heralded studio album (Germfree Adolescents), Poly Styrene decided to leave the band and perform solo.

She’s a talented artist

Poly Styrene had spent time as an alternative fashion designer before becoming a singer, and her artistic talents ran far beyond her distinctive outfits. As well as writing the lyrics to X-Ray Spex’ celebrated tracks, she also created all the band’s artwork herself too. As her daughter Celeste Bell, writing for gal-dem, enthused,‘This was a woman who took Punk’s DIY ethic to a level beyond that of most of her contemporaries’.

She influenced future generations of women in music

From Kathleen Hanna to Karen O, Poly Styrene’s musical legacy lives on. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon has described Poly Styrene’s vocals on ‘Oh Bondage! Up Yours!’ as ‘the most exhilarating voice I ever heard — it was all body’. Beth Ditto proclaimed X-Ray Spex as a ‘band that shaped my identity’, whilst championing Poly Styrene as being ‘so ahead of her time. She recreated punk’. Whilst Hanna has long intoned that ‘Poly lit the way for me as a female singer who wanted to sing about ideas… her lyrics influenced everyone I know who makes music’.

But her own music career was far from straight-forward

As well as offering Poly Styrene a platform and an outlet, the music industry also brought her trauma, suffering. and mental illness. She was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and sectioned after claiming to have seen a ‘Day-Glo UFO’ in the skies, following a gig in Doncaster. A decade later, in 1991, she was diagnosed as bipolar. And, as well as the mental knocks, there were the physical ones; in 1995, just as she was reawakening her solo career, she suffered a broken pelvis after being knocked down by a fire engine.

And in 2021 her life was celebrated and explored for the first time

When Poly Styrene died from cancer in 2011, her daughter became the unwitting guardian of her mother’s legacy, but also of her mother’s demons. Misogyny, racism, and mental illness had plagued Poly’s life, while their lasting trauma affected Celeste’s childhood and the pair’s relationship. Now, in 2021, Bell is examining all this, as well as documenting Poly Styrene’s iconic musical legacy, in a documentary titled, I Am A Cliché.

‘My mum wasn’t like other mums… This film is a testimony to a woman whose story needs to be told’.

Celeste Bell, daughter of Poly Styrene