Adam and the Ants “Prince Charming”
Adam and the Ants “Prince Charming” 1981. Today, November 3rd, is Adam Ant’s birthday (b. Stuart Leslie Goddard, 1954) and at 62 he is still going full-pirate. Prince Charming, his third album and the last one to include “The Ants” in the title, was a major hit, peaking at #2 on the album charts in the UK, with two #1 singles: “Stand and Deliver” and “Prince Charming” (the latter fostered controversy later when it was decided in an out-of-court settlement that the single was musically identical to the 1965 song “War Canoe” by Rolf Harris, who then received a large sum of royalties from Ant). A third single, “Ant Rap,” made it to #3 in the UK.
Prince Charming is a mostly enjoyable new wave pop album, especially the hits (though “Ant Rap” is beyond silly). However there are a couple of real stinkers, including “Five Guns West” which is simply ridiculous, sounding like it belongs on the soundtrack to a spoof spaghetti-western soundtrack. “Mile High Club” is tiresome – its introductory chords sound promising, like a new wave version of “8 Miles High,” but then goes on for another 2:40 of monotony. “Mowhok” similarly drags, with the added, and somewhat offensively, inclusion of Native Americanish traditional beats and chants. The album concludes with a hidden track, “The Lost Hawaiians,” a very brief instrumental that is a remake of “Los Rancheros” from Kings of the Wild Frontier, the Ants’ second album, though to my ears it sounds a lot more like “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” on ukulele (that song originally recorded in 1939 by Solomon Linda, a South African Zulu musician, and it was made popular by the Tokens in 1961 when it became a #1 hit in the US).
Daily (maybe) pulls from the vault: 33-1/3, 45, 78, old, older, classic, new, good, bad. Subjective. Autobiographical. Occasionally putting a record up for sale.