What some have called the most original and best album of the original punk generation was unleashed forty-years ago in November 1978, Germfree Adolescent by X-Ray Spex stands as the pinnacle of what punk would accomplish in its first incarnation.
The dynamo that drove this punk-rock strike of defiance was loaded with anti-capitalist view which all spewed from an unlikely young girl, only nineteen at the time of its recording but this respectable, well-mannered young girl with braces on her teeth which were a feature when she smiled, but then she would open her mouth to sing and the shy, quiet Marion Joan Elliot-Said would transform into the high-priestess of a revolution, Poly Styrene.
The album opens with a four-syllable disdain:Ar-ti-fic-ial! as it phases the music launches and this Richard Hell in knickers summons up the powerful and depressed emotions of the day in a twelve-track assault. It becomes clear that Poly Styrene delivers conviction in every word she sings, every sneer and roll of the tongue, each phrase is delivered with the same oppressed intensity as the last.
As for the musicianship of X-Ray Spex, they provide the perfect backdrop for Styrene to wage a verbal war, this album contains some of the best drumming on a punk record over which a very loud, old-school guitar pumps distorted rock and roll riffs that build in intensity throughout the albumthe inclusion of a saxophone to give the songs an extra depth may not be not common on records of the ‘Generation-X’ but it works here in galvanizing the sound.
The songs themselves are not love songs as such, they are rather the points of everyday society such as; Warrior In Woolworths, Plastic Bag, I Am A Poseur and of course the title track, not many bands could make songs about personal hygiene and supermarkets cool, though these themes make the album relatable and accessible to the youth of the day and stands as a time-capsule of late 70s culture.
Germ Free Adolescents
I know you're antiseptic, your deodorant smells nice
I'd like to get to know you, you're deep frozen like the ice
She's a germ free adolescent, cleanliness is her obsession
Cleans her teeth ten times a day
Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away the S.R. way
You may get to touch her if your gloves are sterilized
Rinse your mouth with Listerine, blow disinfectant in her eyes
She's a germ free adolescent, cleanliness is her obsession
Cleans her teeth ten times a day
Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away the S.R. way
Her phobia is infection, she needs one to survive
It's her built-in protection, without fear she'd give up and die
She's a germ free adolescent, cleanliness is her obsession
Cleans her teeth ten times a day
Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away the S.R. way
She's a germ free adolescent, cleanliness is her obsession
She's a germ free adolescent, cleanliness is her obsession
She's a germ free adolescent, cleanliness is her obsession
She's a germ free adolescent, cleanliness is her obsession
Cleans her teeth ten times a day
Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away the S.R. way
The original 1978 track list:
Side A;
Art-I-Ficial
Obsessed with You
Warrior in Woolworths
Let's Submerge
I Can't Do Anything
Identity
Side B;
Genetic Engineering
I Live Off You
I Am a Poseur
Germ Free Adolescents
Plastic Bag
The Day the World Turned Day
Kevin Burke November 2018
