A new tribute
A light-punk tribute from Poly Styrene who passed recently. It's her new posthumous single. What do you think?
As far as posthumous tributes go, this one is a double rarity. Before she died in April, Poly Styrene, the leader of the pioneering punk act X-Ray Spex, recorded a song inspired by the death of another seminal performer: Michael Jackson.
“Ghoulish,” the second single off Ms. Styrene’s recent solo album, “Generation Indigo,” was inspired by coverage of Jackson at the end of his life. “There was all these pictures of him, and the nose had fallen off, and the white face, and the ghoulishness,” she explained in an interview available on YouTube. “But then I just wanted to say, I see through that. I see through that, he was probably quite a nice guy.” The two never met, but Ms. Styrene was moved by his “soft-spoken, gentle” nature, she said.
“Crimson lips and chocolate eyes on your candy-white face, quite a surprise,” she sings on “Ghoulish,” in a voice that’s less of a punk bark and more Debbie Harry-breathy. “Baby, you’re so ghoulish. But I’m not so foolish, to be scared.”
“It could be about any goth guy, almost, that wears make-up,” Ms. Styrene adds in the YouTube interview. “But Michael Jackson was the inspiration.”
The video for the song, available here today, features an audition of Michael Jackson impersonators, from a novice 12-year-old to a guy wearing glasses and toting a stuffed toy chimp. It was filmed on June 30 at Union Pool, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The director of the video, Lauryn Siegel, said the idea with the motley casting was “to show how Poly’s extreme spirit and vulnerability is embodied by anyone who knows what it’s like to be judged by society.”
The song, which will be released as a digital single on August 8, with a remix by Hercules and Love Affair, “is ultimately a great dance track,” Ms. Siegel added, and after Ms. Styrene’s death, the video was re-worked as a tribute to her. It ends in a dance party, complete with sequined gloves and some “Thriller” moves, and a picture that reads: ‘We ♥ Poly.’
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
Click to viewAs far as posthumous tributes go, this one is a double rarity. Before she died in April, Poly Styrene, the leader of the pioneering punk act X-Ray Spex, recorded a song inspired by the death of another seminal performer: Michael Jackson.
“Ghoulish,” the second single off Ms. Styrene’s recent solo album, “Generation Indigo,” was inspired by coverage of Jackson at the end of his life. “There was all these pictures of him, and the nose had fallen off, and the white face, and the ghoulishness,” she explained in an interview available on YouTube. “But then I just wanted to say, I see through that. I see through that, he was probably quite a nice guy.” The two never met, but Ms. Styrene was moved by his “soft-spoken, gentle” nature, she said.
“Crimson lips and chocolate eyes on your candy-white face, quite a surprise,” she sings on “Ghoulish,” in a voice that’s less of a punk bark and more Debbie Harry-breathy. “Baby, you’re so ghoulish. But I’m not so foolish, to be scared.”
“It could be about any goth guy, almost, that wears make-up,” Ms. Styrene adds in the YouTube interview. “But Michael Jackson was the inspiration.”
The video for the song, available here today, features an audition of Michael Jackson impersonators, from a novice 12-year-old to a guy wearing glasses and toting a stuffed toy chimp. It was filmed on June 30 at Union Pool, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The director of the video, Lauryn Siegel, said the idea with the motley casting was “to show how Poly’s extreme spirit and vulnerability is embodied by anyone who knows what it’s like to be judged by society.”
The song, which will be released as a digital single on August 8, with a remix by Hercules and Love Affair, “is ultimately a great dance track,” Ms. Siegel added, and after Ms. Styrene’s death, the video was re-worked as a tribute to her. It ends in a dance party, complete with sequined gloves and some “Thriller” moves, and a picture that reads: ‘We ♥ Poly.’
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com