Poly Styrene

Marianne Joan Elliott-Said (3 July 1957 – 25 April 2011), known by the stage name Poly Styrene, was an English musician, singer-songwriter, and frontwoman for the punk rock band X-Ray Spex.

Poly Styrene was born Marianne Joan Elliott-Said in 1957 in Bromley, Kent, and brought up in Brixton, London.

Her mother, who raised her alone, was a Scottish-Irish legal secretary.

Her father was a Somali-born dock worker, although Poly Styrene used to tell the press that he was a dispossessed Somali aristocrat.

As a teenager, Styrene was a hippie.

When she was 15 she ran away from home with £3 in her pocket, and hitchhiked from one music festival to another, staying at hippie crash pads.

Thinking of this as a challenge to survive, her adventure ended when she stepped on a rusty nail while bathing in a stream and had to be treated for sepsis.

From this, she became the singer with X-Ray Spex, Poly Styrene, a name she chose from the 'Yellow Pages' when she was 'looking for a name of the time, something plastic.' She was described by Billboard as the "archetype for the modern-day feminist punk"; because she wore dental braces, rebelled against the archetypal female sex object of the 1970s, sported a gaudy Dayglo wardrobe, and was of mixed race.

She was "one of the least conventional frontpersons in rock history, male or female".

Styrene recorded her first demo album in 1975, when she was 18 years old.

Her manager enlisted Ted Bunting to produce the record.

Having been 'an itinerant traveller, alternative fashion designer and a failed pop-reggae singer', she saw Sex Pistols perform at the Pier Pavilion in Hastings on her nineteenth birthday, 3 July 1976, and decided to form the punk band X-Ray Spex.

In 1976, Styrene released her first single under her real name, Mari Elliott.

Titled "Silly Billy", it was a reggae track, with some touches of the then popular ska style.

Her daughter Celeste has called it 'similar to Althea and Donna, who she really liked'.

She co-wrote the B-side "What a Way" with the record's producer, Falcon Stuart.

The single came in a GTO Records sleeve.

After watching a very early gig by the Sex Pistols in an empty hall on Hastings Pier, playing a set of cover songs, she was inspired to put an ad in the music papers for 'young punx who want to stick it together' to form a band.

They launched their debut single in 1977.

In 1978, after a gig in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, Styrene had a vision of a pink light in the sky and felt objects crackling when she touched them.

Thinking she was hallucinating, her mother took her to the hospital where Marianne was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, sectioned, and told she would never work again.

After the original line-up of X-Ray Spex broke up in 1979, Poly Styrene recorded a solo album, Translucence, in 1980.

The album abandoned X-Ray Spex's loud guitar work for a quieter and more jazzy sound that has since been described as foreshadowing later work by Everything but the Girl.

In 1986, she released the EP God's & Godesses [sic] on the Awesome record label.

She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1991.

A New Age solo album, Flower Aeroplane, followed in 2004.

She described herself as "an observer, not a suffering artist writing from tortured experiences. I was playing with words and ideas. Having a laugh about everything, sending it up."

In 2007, Styrene was invited to the Concrete Jungle festival in Camber Sands, by her friend John Robb; Styrene and the festival's organiser, Symond Lawes, agreed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of X-Ray Spex's debut album, Germfree Adolescents.

The celebrations included a live show on 6 September 2008.at the Camden Roundhouse, which was a sell-out.

A live album/DVD of this event, Live @ The Roundhouse London 2008, was released in November 2009 on the Year Zero label by Future Noise Music.

She made a guest appearance at the 2008 30th anniversary concert of Rock Against Racism in Victoria Park, London, performing "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" with guest musicians Drew McConnell (of Babyshambles and Helsinki) and 'Flash' David Wright playing saxophone.

That same year, she dueted with Goldblade's John Robb on a remix of Goldblade's "City of Christmas Ghosts".

In March 2009, Styrene joined other members of PRS for Music in criticising Google for allegedly not paying a fair share of royalties to musicians.

This followed Google's removal of millions of videos from YouTube because of a royalties dispute with the organisation.

NME.com announced on 29 October 2010 that Poly Styrene was to release a solo album titled Generation Indigo, produced by Martin Glover (aka Youth from Killing Joke), in March 2011.

She released a free download of "Black Christmas" in November 2010.

Inspired by a Los Angeles killing spree of a man dressed as Santa Claus, "Black Christmas" was written in collaboration with her daughter, Celeste.

Styrene announced "Virtual Boyfriend" as the first single from the new album Generation Indigo via Spinner Music, as well as the launch of her new website.

"Virtual Boyfriend" was released on 21 March 2011, and featured an animated promotional video directed by Ben Wheele.

Generation Indigo was released on 28 March 2011, via Future Noise Music.