Danielle Dax

A very unusual, unclassifiable experimental artist whose career through the 80s and 90s was a series of left-of-center, subversive stabs at commercial viability. This is undeniably pop music—spicy new wave with big hair and bright drums—but as seen through kaleidoscopic filters and funhouse mirrors.

Fuzzy guitars and propulsive beats give the impression of classic glammy shenanigans, but then there's a sun-bleached SoCal hair-metal over-the-top showiness. And a waxed pop-punk Billy Idol shake. And a big, hooky, toothy sing-along choruses not unlike Banarama's airbrushed Joan Jett. Some snarling, chilly, greased goth, too—a Love and Rockets attitude, perhaps.