Kiss Them for Me

By 1991, Siouxsie Sioux had been making records for fifteen years without compromising her visual or sonic identity. Kiss Them for Me was the surprise: a shimmering, almost pop track that gave the Banshees their biggest US hit, reaching #23 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Written as a tribute to Jayne Mansfield — the title taken from a 1957 film — the lush production and string arrangements created something both commercial and completely characteristic. The Banshees sounded like no one else even when making their most accessible record.

The Banshees disbanded in 1996. Siouxsie's influence on goth, post-punk, and alternative music is impossible to overstate — she essentially invented the aesthetic that a thousand artists have been riffing on ever since.