Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, born 3 July 1957, was a British musician, songwriter and singer, known by the pseudonym Poly Styrene. She was best known as the lead singer of the punk band X-Ray Spex.
In the mid-1970s, Poly became interested in punk music after attending a concert by The Sex Pistols. She then placed an ad in a local newspaper announcing her desire to start her own punk band. Eventually this became X-Ray Spex. The group had several independent hits with ''Oh Bondage, Up Yours!'', ''Identity'' and ''The Day The World Turned Day-glo''. Poly Styrene was the flamboyant figurehead within the group. She stood out because of her striking appearance. She wore clothes in clashing colors and a brace. She did this to emphasize that she did not want to be seen as a sex object.
In 1978, Poly Styrene began having hallucinations that prevented her from focusing properly on the band and her music. She was hospitalized, where she was misdiagnosed. She was said to be schizophrenic. It wasn't until 1991 that she was determined to have bipolar behavioral disorder.
After X-Ray Spex broke up in 1980, Poly released a solo album: Translucence. The hard punk sound and her characteristic shrill voice gave way to quieter jazz music and a more subdued singing style.
The solo album was a minor success, but Poly Styrene withdrew from the music world after this. In 1983 she joined the Hare Krishna movement, where she was actively involved in until 1988.
For years she lived in anonymity, also raising a daughter. It was not until 2004 that she made herself heard again musically with the album Flower Aeroplane. Six years after that, she announced she was coming out with a new album: Generation Indigo. The release of this album took place on March 28, 2011.
In February 2011, Poly Styrene was told she had advanced breast cancer, with metastases to her back and lungs. She died on Easter Monday, April 25, 2011 at the age of 53 at her home in Sussex.