adam and the ants Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Adam and the Ants “Prince Charming”

sfilzen — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 19:17:11 +0000

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).

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Adam and the Ants “Dirk Wears White Sox”

sfilzen — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 14:56:16 +0000

Adam and the Ants “Dirk Wears White Sox” 1979. Do It Records. Their debut studio LP and according to Wiki it holds the distinction of being the very first number one album on the UK Independent Albums Chart when the chart debuted in Record Week, 1980. Despite that accolade, the band didn’t do as well as expected and this iteration of the Ants bailed, going on to form Malcom McLaren’s creation Bow Wow Wow.

A friend posted about getting a copy of the second pressing of this LP yesterday so I decided to dig out ours, which is likely a second, possibly third UK pressing.

This is super-early Adam Ant: much less poppy and polished than subsequent releases, sounding slightly garage-y at points, but still with a bop beat and sometimes danceable. His glam-punk roots shine on “Nine Plan Failed,” where Adam and his Ants sound like a rawly produced David Bowie accented with woo-woo backup singers. “Tabletalk” has a stark goth flavor, reminiscent of post-punk contemporaries, Siouxsie and the Banshees, especially their “Scream” release. “Cleopatra” is musically post-punk and lyrically challenging:

Cle-o-pa-tra!

C-Cleopatra did a ten-thousand
In her lifetime
Now that’s a wide mouth
C-Cleopatra gave a service
With a smile-oh
She was a wide mouthed girl
A wide mouthed girl

C-Cleopatra did a hundred (1-0-0)
Roman centurion
For after dinner mints
C-Cleopatra used a suction
Oh so unheard of
She was a wide mouthed girl
A wide mouthed girl (believe it)

Show me a bigger mouth
Show me a bigger mouth
Show me a bigger mouth
Show me a bigger mouth (yeah)

What a weak distorted image
Elizabeth and Richard gave upon the screen
Of that wide mouthed girl
Wide mouthed girl (oh yeah)

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