A Diptych of "I'm not really sure that I should have bought these" - (X-ray Spex + Wire)

Belvedere Jehosophat - Tuesday, 5 August 2003 - Print Version

Hoo, boy!

X-ray Spex - The Anthology

I heard this band for the first time at work just the other day and I decided to see if I could track down a CD of theirs. It turns out that they'd had a little success with a song called Oh Bondage! Up Yours!, which was, incidentally, the song that I had heard.

X-ray Spex are an old English co-ed(?) punk(?) band. I initially, mistakenly, thought that they were an all girl band. I later discovered that the ugly girls on the cover of the anthology album were actually men.

Interestingly, in the liner notes it mentions that part of the interest in X-ray Spex was that there happened to be two women in the band. However, at around about the same time there was another punk band, a much better one, called Crass, which also featured two women.

I then noticed that the CD was part of a series of punk re-releases. These re-releases were of, I'm guessing, like-minded bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Damned, Sham 69, etc. So, while X-ray Spex made some pretty ok music, they also kept some pretty shitty company.

There are two discs in total. The first CD contains 16 of what I assume are the "best-of" songs plus ten different demos and instrumentals. The second CD contains eight live tracks taken from a concert at the Roxy and three tracks from a 1995 reunion of sorts.

What makes them stand out from most other punk bands is that there is a sax player in the line-up. The sax player plays jazzy, bluesy, often dissonant refrains.

The lyrics, all-written by the singer, Poly Styrene, which seem to feature an obsession with disposable, consumer culture, are kinda light-weight - quaint at best, especially when compared to what was being written by other bands of the time.

The problem with this band is that they run kinda hot and cold. When it sounds good it sounds good, however, there are times, particularly on the slower songs, when it sounds just lame - even, unfortunately, new-wavy.

In fact, I'm convinced that X-ray Spex are a new-wave band but that, because of the low quality of the recording, as was common on punk records, they just sound like a punk band.

I base this on two things, a) they have a saxophone, which, to me, is as synonymous with new-wave as the solo banjo is to bluegrass; and, b) the 1995 reunion tracks are pretty much new-wave songs.
I don't mean to harp on about new wave music but, well, The Knack...

Whichever way, it's not the greatest CD in the world; not terrible but certainly not amazing.

Wire - Pink Flag

This CD was triaged and deemed beyond saving. I gave it away to a friend.

Belvedere Jehosophat