CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

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Germ Free Adolescents

by: X-Ray Spex

Release Date February 26, 2008
If you like Bikini Kill, Be Your Own Pet, yeah yeah yeahs, well, they wouldn't exist without this album. Much as the other reviewer don't like Polly Styrene's vocals, they've sure been influential, becoming the standard for girl punk yelping. The difference with the Spex is that they always let you know they were having fun, more than they were raging. See old clips of them, they're smiling, not spitting. The lyrics are funny, the kind of pop culture trash that the B-52s and early Blondie were also into. The difference is that X Ray Spex were British, and they were self aware enough to make fun of themselves as much as anyone else. forget clash, sex pistols, no one wants to sound like them today, the really influential punk groups were this ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

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Let's Submerge: The Anthology

by: X-Ray Spex

Release Date February 26, 2008
Poly Styrene sings about tube stations, package plastic and anti-septic mouth-wash. S & M, rat infestations and suicide.
Her backing group play loud raucous pop with dashes of blazing saxophone.
It's a special combination.
Poly Styrene is a genuine one-off, a loner, a misfit. Her songs describe in brilliantly observed and acerbically realised fashion, what it's like to be the perpetual underdog, the dissolute, the eternal victim.
Like so many others of her time.
The difference - Poly Styrene never once stoops to the level of ghastly icon's like Jimmy Pursey; dismally urging 'unity' and 'rebellion' (splutter!) among the 'working classes' and the exploited. She's got mounds more dignity and class. Her creative ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

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Conscious Consumer

by: X-Ray Spex

Release Date September 28, 1995
I'm giving this album 5 stars.The wit and humor of the band's seminal work is mostly missing but the focus remains tight.

Musically, it is very reminiscent of Poly's severely under-appreciated solo work in the 80s.

I knew Poly, or Maharani as she is known, from my days as a Hare Krshna devotee and she is a sweet and complex personality which I feel this album reflects.

It's not just punk rock guitar slashing and it does a very good job of servicing her vocals.

I sense most will find this to be an interesting and honest work.

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

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Anthology

by: X-Ray Spex

Release Date October 22, 2001
X-Ray Spex only released one album, 'Germ Free Adolescents', and it's repackaged here with some fluff that you don't need, at the price of a single album. The first sixteen tracks on disc one comprise the album, although for no reason at all the track listing has been moved around. Ignore the demo and live material and you have one of the most consistent of the wave of punk albums to emerge at the time. The group were unusual in that they had two saxphone players (plus the obligatory grinding guitars), and a lead singer who was a woman, a plain-looking woman with braces and an impressively bratty set of pipes. Poly Styrene had already had a microscopic career as a teen-pop-reggae act, releasing a single before punk happened, and the group's songwriting ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

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Germ Free Adolescents

by: X-Ray Spex

Release Date June 25, 1992

The release of this album on CD has been long overdue. This is the unique sound created by 'X-Ray Spex' - a band from 1978 who should have been more successful than they actually were. Way ahead of their time, it was fascinating how something so out of tune could have sounded so 'tuneful'! Three hit singles were spawned from this - including the memorable classic: Germ Free Adolescence'. With the exception of this, many of the lyrics are indistinguishable, but the sound is so unique this hardly matters. It was once said at the time that 'Poly Styrene' had a voice like a flat tyre with a slow puncture - judge for yourself, but what great stuff! I think I saw this band first perform an a late night show (could've been 'The Whistle Test' but am unsure after ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

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Germ Free Adolescents [VINYL]

by: X-Ray Spex

Release Date June 23, 2003
Forget Never Mind The Bollocks and all the jokers who call themselves punks nowadays this is the business: energy, melody, wit, feeling and just downright great songs, it sounds as great today as it did in 1978 and the addition of the classic single Highly Inflammable is the icing on the cake.

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

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Anthology

by: X-ray Spex

Release Date
Forget Never Mind The Bollocks and all the jokers who call themselves punks nowadays this is the business: energy, melody, wit, feeling and just downright great songs, it sounds as great today as it did in 1978 and the addition of the classic single Highly Inflammable is the icing on the cake.

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

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Conscious Consumer (French Import)

by: X Ray Spex

Release Date
Forget Never Mind The Bollocks and all the jokers who call themselves punks nowadays this is the business: energy, melody, wit, feeling and just downright great songs, it sounds as great today as it did in 1978 and the addition of the classic single Highly Inflammable is the icing on the cake.

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

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Germ Free Adolescents

by: X-Ray Spex

Release Date October 16, 2006

The release of this album on CD has been long overdue. This is the unique sound created by 'X-Ray Spex' - a band from 1978 who should have been more successful than they actually were. Way ahead of their time, it was fascinating how something so out of tune could have sounded so 'tuneful'! Three hit singles were spawned from this - including the memorable classic: Germ Free Adolescence'. With the exception of this, many of the lyrics are indistinguishable, but the sound is so unique this hardly matters. It was once said at the time that 'Poly Styrene' had a voice like a flat tyre with a slow puncture - judge for yourself, but what great stuff! I think I saw this band first perform an a late night show (could've been 'The Whistle Test' but am unsure after ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

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Germ Free Adolescents

by: X-Ray Spex

Release Date

The release of this album on CD has been long overdue. This is the unique sound created by 'X-Ray Spex' - a band from 1978 who should have been more successful than they actually were. Way ahead of their time, it was fascinating how something so out of tune could have sounded so 'tuneful'! Three hit singles were spawned from this - including the memorable classic: Germ Free Adolescence'. With the exception of this, many of the lyrics are indistinguishable, but the sound is so unique this hardly matters. It was once said at the time that 'Poly Styrene' had a voice like a flat tyre with a slow puncture - judge for yourself, but what great stuff! I think I saw this band first perform an a late night show (could've been 'The Whistle Test' but am unsure after ... Read More: