Nobody has to defend Ringo, he’s fucking Ringo Starr! He’s the drummer of The Beatles. If it weren’t for Ringo, The Beatles wouldn’t have sounded like The Beatles. And if The Beatles wouldn’t have sounded like The Beatles, there will be no Beatles. Did I make any sense?

Here’s the thing about the 1970s British and American punk scenes: they were every bit as misogynistic and race-exclusive as the society they claimed to stand counter to. And Styrene didn’t look the part of a punk — at the time, she was a mixed-race not-skinny avowed-feminist teenager with braces and day-glo old lady clothes, who later struggled with mental health issues. But Styrene embraced her role as punk’s conscience, both as critic and role model; she screamed down consumerism and magazine culture both inside and outside the scene, with a bullying shriek still heard in singers like latter-day feminist icon Kathleen Hanna.