Raging Against The Artifice: Edith Nylon

It was 1977 when Edith Nylon burst onto the Punk scene in France. Still a little wet behind the ears, it was another couple of years before they achieved mainstream success with their eponymous debut single and album.

With its foreboding opening riffs, the single is particularly distinctive, its narrative foretelling the transformation of a young woman (Edith Nylon) into a sort of bionic, hypersexual plaything made of synthetic materials and modern technology. The arrangement is quite astute for such a young band, skillfully alternating between moods of suspense and jubilance.

The lyrical theme speaks of our increasingly commercial and synthetic culture, and comparisons with bands like X-Ray Spex are irresistible. Plastic Bag, The Day The World Turned Day-glo and Germfree Adolescents invited us to ponder similar ideas, but both bands existed in the same pop-cultural bubble; both were inspired by the same clichéd talking points of their generation.

While Edith Nylon went on to achieve further success, their later output became less provocative. Even after learning recently that they reformed (I’ve apparently been asleep for three years) the temptation to talk about them in the past-tense is strong. I’d love to see them live, but the band I fell in love with was very much of another time.

(The performance above is an out-take from La Brune et moi—the cult punk film I previously wrote about here.)