Consumer Guide Album

Siouxsie and the Banshees: The Scream [Polydor, 1978]
Hippies were rainbow extremists; punks are romantics of black-and-white. Hippies forced warmth; punks cultivate cool. Hippies kidded themselves about free love; punks pretend that s&m is our condition. As symbols of protest, swastikas are no less fatuous than flowers. So it's not surprising that Siouxsie Sioux, punks' exemplary fan-turned-artist, should prove every bit as pretentious as model-turned-rocker Grace Slick or film-student manqué Jim Morrison. Nor is it surprising that while the spirit is still upon her she should come up with a tunefully atonal, modestly sensationalistic album. B+