Feminist punk icon Poly Styrene has died aged 53, of breast cancer.
(Edit to add: the Guardian's full obituary)
I am not that big a fan of the X-Ray Spex, although I do enjoy some of the songs they recorded with Poly Styrene at the mic. However, her name is one of those that is etched deeply into the history of punk music and most people who have an interest in the punk of the 1970s will have some idea of who she was and what she did for the music.
The Guardian's quote from Beth Ditto puts it into perspective, Ms Ditto being a punk feminist icon for the present day: "Poly Styrene [was] so ahead of her time. She recreated punk."
What I didn't know until reading the Guardian article was her later troubles. To have come through misdiagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, being hit by a fire engine, and more recently to promote a new album while suffering from breast cancer that had spread to lungs and spine. That was one heck of a tough cookie! But alas, the universe is bigger than any of us and cares not one jot who lives or dies.
And so yet another cultural feminist icon from the seventies has passed away, following Lis Sladen's death last week.
RIP Poly Styrene
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