Singer and Punk Pioneer Poly Styrene Dies

By Liz Ohanesian Tue., Apr. 26 2011 at 2:28 AM

Early this morning, NME confirmed that Poly Styrene, also known as Marian Joan Elliott-Said, has died. Shortly thereafter, the following message was sent via the singer's Twitter.

Poly Styrene, whose work with X-Ray Spex made her a punk rock legend, was 53 years old. She had been battling cancer.

Rumors that Poly Styrene had died surfaced late in the afternoon on April 25, spreading through social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, and were first reported by our sister paper OC Weekly. Though the singer's Facebook page was crammed with RIP messages, there was no official word from her camp until just before 10:30 a.m. in the UK (2:30 a.m. in Los Angeles).

Poly Styrene's solo album, Generation Indigo, is set for release today. It came out in the UK last month.

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Poly Styrene, RIP

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James R, Nolan

I was an L.A. boy who couldn't get enough Punk Rock in 1977. When Rodney Bingenheimer played X-Ray Spex's "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" on Rodney On The ROQ (the only station you could hear the new sounds at that time), maybe there were those who thought that it was a one-off novelty song and that was the end of it, but glory be they came back with the album Germ Free Adolescents, an album so perfect, containing not one lackluster, below-par track, that to this day still sounds as fresh to these 51-year-old ears as they did then to my youthful 18-year-old ones in 1978. Then the band split, but it was always nice to know she would occasionally resurface to release something new after long periods away, like 1986's "Trick of the Witch" or that X-Ray Spex reformed in the 90s to work again.One oft the admirable things about her is she stuck to her guns, and never let criticisms about her mixed ethnicity, her weight, or her singing voice get her down for long, if at all--she barreled ahead and did what she wanted, and the music world's a better place for it, but it's a sadder world now that she's no longer physically part of it.

Antonio Montes

one of my favorite female vocalists of all time with that nice sexy english draw , equal to siouxie in greatness different in styles, shes fkn awesome, whats that oh yeah

Germfree Adolescence -Totps 1978