I Was a Teenage Banshee

I’ve been revisiting things that I enjoyed in my youth recently. I don’t know if it’s just mid-life crisis, or because the world is at a coronavirus standstill, or because I’m mostly stuck at home with all the memories and things I’ve collected over the years, or maybe it’s just that nostalgia is a relatively healthy form of escapism. Whatever the case, I’ve recently enjoyed playing ‘90s video games, watching old basketball documentaries, and have been listening to lots of music I enjoyed during high school and college.

I Was a Teenage Banshee, a new title from Rizzoli Electa, more or less does the same thing, only much better; because it’s in book form, and the person doing the revisiting is a accomplished artist Sue Webster, from the UK’s “Post-YBA” art school of the 2000s. In researching this post, I learned that “Künstlerroman” is German for an “artists’s novel.” Of course there’s a specific word in German for that. Traditionally, a Künstlerroman is an autobiography which tells the story of an artist’s growth into maturity. In this case, Webster, a solo artist, who is also well-known for her work as part of a collaborative duo with Timothy Noble. Webster has long cited music, and specifically punk, as one of her biggest influences. Souixsie and the Banshees were a successful late ’70s / early ‘80s post-punk, alt-rock, new wave band, who combined experimental sounds with excellent musicianship for a good two decade run, dropping no less than 11 studio albums in the process. Their biggest commercial success was a 1983 cover of Dear Prudence, and they went on to influence other bands including The Smiths, Joy Division, Radiohead, and many more. Apparently Webster was a little bit of a fan!

Since this is a memoir by a visual artist, and a tribute to a group of musicians, obviously this impressive memoir deviates from the Künstlerroman literary tradition somewhat. At the same time it’s immediately clear just how much the band influenced Webster’s work, her fashion style, and more. I love the way this speaks to the tribalism of the ’90s, when it was common to build a lot of your persona around a favorite band or style of music. As well as being a heartfelt tribute to a talented band, from another talented creative, it’s also an interesting look at the way that one generation of artists can influence the next.