When I listen to Lola Young’s latest album, “This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway,” whether she intended to or not, the young British singer reminds me of some of the female artists who were lurking in the background of the 1970s British punk movement and, later, the early 1980s new wave movement in America. The 23-year-old’s tunes don’t have the same punk rock velocity as X-Ray Spex and the Slits from the UK or the bubbliness of the Go-Go’s or Blondie; but there is a mood and a point of view that is similar to those earlier artist. In the 1970s and 1980s, the industry preferred that women in pop music were perfect, glossy and beautiful.
Audiences didn’t want to hear from women who were broken and hurt...
except for the occasional musical diversion. Debbie Harry, much to her chagrin, became a pin-up. Chrissie Hynde and Siouxsie Sioux were more indicative of the anti-establishment bent of post-punk female rockers that echoes in Young.
The women in punk shared their flaws with pride. They flaunted their desires. They were willing to be human.
And they were often wary of sex or handing over their independence to a guy. Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex in “Germ Free Adolescents” sang to us about a woman whose OCD nature colored her every relationship. “You may get to touch her/If your gloves are sterilized/ Rinse your mouth with Listerine/ Blow disinfectant in her eyes.
” Young also reminds me of America’s Romeo Void, which was led by singer Debora Iyall. Iyall was.