The Creatures - Red Wrapping Paper

Alternative Christmas songs don't get more deadly cheerful than Siouxsie snarling Red Wrapping Paper (whilst referencing Cristina's cult post-punk pop classic Things Fall Apart) as performed by The Creatures. Not able to be held in captivity by the Anima Animus album, B-side status was assured. Atmospheric with otherworldly tinkles like earily ornate Christmas tree decorations come to life, Budgie's percussion ensure this is no fairytale whimsy. Only Siouxsie could turn gift-wrapping into an act of malice.

Hey Creepo's

Siouxsie Sioux's growling purr and abundant snarling on The Creatures' epic flamenco standstill Standing There lyrically stampedes over wolf-whistling jocks, hissing considerately 'mmmm you got a problem - we know, but there is something you oughta know' in composed, angry kindness before pulling the trigger. Beginning with the knuckle-scraping clastanets, it attracts like fluttering eyelashes assuming the guise of a willing object for the grunting gaze of gormless and gruesome sex-retarded greboes, before purposefully sending them on their way in particularly glamorous fury and teeth-cracking clatter.

Below: the striking cover for the 1990 album Boomerang was shot by Anton Corbin, the longtime collaborator with Depeche Mode.

But this is Siouxise just being kind: a moment later her throaty charge has started. Fuck Lady Gaga's grunting on the boredgame LoveGame, this is real confrontation designed to unsettle - none of this MTV dance crew crap that's feeding the masses with so much promise on the label and yet nothing substantial content-wise. Her gurning vocal charge is adeptly matched with the avalanche of Budgie's entraining percussion and drums.

Siouxsie continues to flare her nostrils all through this purging anthem: 'how empty and pointless you life - HEY! - must seem' is at the tame end of the scale. As a 15 year old I needed this kind of battle charge just to get through the day. Best of all:

Does what you won't understand scare and make you mad?
Resentful and envious, don't you disgust yourself?
So funny to see how pathetic some men can be

Many suppressed eye-rolls were compensated for by hearing the rapid flow of these knife-slashing lyrics whilst still at secondary school. Her aggrevated caution and fearless combat descend with vitriolic disgust into open fire. Chances are blown and 'somebody should show them where to go' packs the final punch.

The final single from the album was the less scorched Fury Eyes, a tropical thirst similar to another of their songs Ghecko, and nodded towards the lavish decoration of the next Banshees album Superstition. It sounds like a song of the affection shared between mermaid Ariel and crab Sebastian from Disney's the Little Mermaid, with typical joyful bite from Sioux. Splendid stuff, and remixed vibrantly for its perky release as a prediictably non-charting single.

Below: 'If I see one more erection before breakfast I won't apologise for applying yet more lipstick' (still taken from the Standing There video).

Elewhere, the jazzy Killing Time was covered by man-babe Jeff Buckley, the burping Willow dares both Siouxsie and Budgie to keep going in spite of a missing melody, and the plummeting Pluto was performed on UK national TV. The beauty of Siouxsie's glistening vocals are evident and reflected from all angles on Boomerang, a peaceful and sometimes spitefully gargling deviation from their main work it is no less vital.

Fury Eyes (album edit)

Siouxsie's Throaty Delirium

Fragments of crystal expensively splinter into extravagant air as Siouxsie Sioux is festooned and garlanded, in the flouncy tradition of a 1950s movie starlet embracing her tragic climax in wanton delight by "carving the devotion" of Hollywood mythology obsessed with dying young, on her most decorative and alive single ever, Kiss Them For Me. Sioux embellishes her ornate lyrics as if they are written in diamonds, enrapturing her audience with the sheer magnetism of her cut-glass voice. The lead-off single from 1991s career high Superstition engages in visual themes of Champaign and pin-up frivolity with a cascade of decorative words that reconcile with the sharp Stephen Hague production that so famously turned the stomach of punk icon Siouxsie. Her alluring enigma hides the wounds behind the death of celluloid star Jayne Mansfield as the actresses' catch-word "divoon" is given a final definition that refuses to shatter, her death merely a marvelous "delay".


Elsewhere: the warm summer air of Shadowtime shimmers like a midnight moon being combed by moving clouds; the exacting Silly Thing extracts excess with deadly pursuit from Siouxsie's throaty delirium; her final bow, The Ghost In You, persecutes with tenderness ("the whisper of your scream sighs through the air ... so soft and frail"); the chorus to Silver Waterfalls positively describes itself (the sublime "ahhhh" as she gears up to sing "glimmer, shimmer - on me" is flaunted mercilessly like an operatic flick of a whip); unleashing the uproaring Got To Get Up's high impact intensity activates her impressive vocal range into an avalanche of awakened intuition; the tearful tirade of Cry disperses tooth-pic precision on the alternative dancefloor; the Jr. Vasquez revision of Fear (of The Unknown) for its French single release sounds like Grace Jones produced by Deee-Lite!; Softly quivers like Dannii Minogue entering a strip joint; and going spare, the magical atmosphere of the sustained-tempo ballad Return rose to the surface as a highly essential B-side to Kiss Them For Me.


As always, Siouxsie is aware of every moment of what she is doing and everything here is touched with her unique personal magic.

Kiss Them For Me (Album Version)
Kiss Them For Me (Kathak Mix)
Fear of The Unknown (Album Version)
Fear of The Unknown (Jr. Vasquez Single Edit)
Cry
Shadowtime (Album Version)
Silly Thing
Got To get Up
Silver Waterfalls
The Ghost In You
Return
Face To Face

Note: I promise to upload the final songs on this list at some point!

Siouxsie Sioux - Into A Swan

With a name that conjures a not unknown poem, the gates to Siouxsie’s perverse playground appear open once more as it begins with a mechanical moan, like a long-planned invasion suddenly commencing. Littering the screem dazzlingly, la Sioux sings a sense of overcoming wasteful debris in life – the transformation is not necessarily musical, sounding like a delicious and striking cut from the almighty Anima Animus album. The accompanying video provides the perfect flashlight for her iconic features – a shock as always is received to the senses upon impact both visually and musically, and her legendary image, courageous music merging together in an eerie, shimmering and spectacular launch. Her strained drawl pledges faith in the face perilous danger, and renders a her forever beguiling allure a release unique to only herself. The mirror effect toys with the illusionary aspect to her façade, in the delicate clutch of garishly painted nails, it is an image that refuses to shatter. With her freezing stare or wanton body movement, Siouxsie is simply awesome when let loose and begins to awake to the music, a stormy expedition wherein she sounds as spellbinding as ever.

Siouxsie - Into A Swan (video link)