Top 10 Musical Pseudonyms
8. Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex)
Everyone loves a play on words and judging by the name of the name that Marianne Elliot adopted, PUNks were no different. Hahahaha... Now, if youd just ignore that dreadful attempt at humour, we can move all move on!
Regardless of its inherent contradictions, if punk was one thing, it was vehemently political. But where The Pistols and The Clash bemoaned the state of a country that bordered on becoming a police state, Day-Glo-sporting art rockers, X-Ray Spex, used the movement as a platform to comment on materialism, artificiality and gender inequality. These themes permeated the bands only long-player, Germ Free Adolescents, and are perhaps most memorably found on their fabulously feisty stand-alone single, Oh Bondage, Up Yours!
In said single, a charismatic Poly Styrene uses the imagery of bondage to not only critique the static sexualisation and expected life trajectories of women but also to address the idea that people prostitute their true selves to survive in a conformist society; a theme of assimilation that prefigured further explorations of this allegory, on songs such as the Manics explosive Yes and Pulps disillusioned This Is Hardcore. Defiant and provocative, Styrene was something of a pioneer for the modern-day female pop star, with her unconventional quirky appearance and challenging subject matter inspiring such chart subversives as Madonna and Lady Gaga.
As a reflection of X-Ray Spexs obsession with fakery and consumerism, the apt pseudonym Poly Styrene also somewhat depressingly suggested that no matter how hard people try to remove socially-ingrained preconceptions, our perceptions will eternally be the constructs of our inhabited society. After all, we are all just products of prevailing fashions and ideologies with little to no freedom of choice.