Siouxsie Sioux

Though she was around for the birth of punk in the U.K., Siouxsie Sioux would make her mark as a pioneer of the post-punk scene and ultimately become a goth icon. Born Susan Janet Ballion in London, England on May 27, 1957, she had her head turned in a transgressive rock 'n' roll direction by seeing David Bowie on TV when she was a teenager. By 1976, she had fallen in with a rebellious crowd (famously dubbed The Bromley Contingent by music scribe Caroline Coon) who followed the newly formed Sex Pistols from gig to gig, dressing and acting as provocatively as possible and giving England its first glimpse of what punks were like (apart from the Pistols and a handful of others). Siouxsie's unique look got her face plastered all over the media, especially after her presence during the Pistols' notorious appearance on England's Today show helped instigate a string of on-air expletives from Pistol Steve Jones that caused an enormous uproar. So by the time she actually got around to forming Siouxsie & The Banshees, whose first ad hoc appearance was a long deconstruction of "The Lord's Prayer" in September '76, she was already attracting plenty of attention. Once they really got going, though, the band was successful straight away, with their 1978 debut album, The Scream, hitting No. 12 in the U.K. and the non-LP single "Hong Kong Garden" going Top 10. By the early '80s, their style had evolved from edgy, angular post-punk into a more complexly textured goth sound, and they grew in popularity along the way. Siouxsie became a goth avatar right alongside the likes of Bauhaus's Peter Murphy. Around this time, Banshees drummer Budgie and Siouxsie embarked on duo side project The Creatures, crafting a minimal but exotic sound that tapped into influences previously unheard in The Banshees. Eventually, however, The Banshees would incorporate elements of international and dance music, finally breaking through to the U.S. with the 1991 single "Kiss Them For Me." The band called it quits in 1996, though The Creatures remained active for some time. Siouxsie had released the occasional solo or duo single since the early '90s, but it wasn't until 2004 that she played her first solo concert, and she finally put out her solo debut album, Mantaray, in 2007. She played a few reunion shows with The Banshees in 2013, but soon thereafter returned to her own projects.