Earworm of the Day: X-Ray Spex - Oh Bondage! Up Yours!

My "punk rock" education came piecemeal, through whatever books of music criticism I could find in my neighborhood library (hello Greil Marcus!) and courtesy of a scratchy, distant college radio station. Punk was a dirty word at my high school. Maybe dirty is overstating it a little; embarrassing is more like it. Punk was a relic from another generation, or a fashion statement filtered through popular media. It was patently uncool to call any kind of loud, subversive rock music "punk."

I couldn't tell you were I was when I first listened X-Ray Spex's "Oh Bondage." It's one of those songs so firmly embedded in its particular culture it has no teleology, but like most defunct punk bands I eventually glommed onto, I'm pretty sure I heard of X-Ray Spex before I ever heard them. During the ass-end of the eighties, this was the way I acquired most of my musical knowledge. I bought a lot of albums having no idea what the band sounded like, something I couldn't imagine doing now, even with the low risk of downloading.  And "Oh Bondage" was a feminist rock song before there was a template for feminist rock songs. Another big selling point.