Ah, this is the business. Pure class.
I went through a period of two or three years when I didn't play music. Well, that's not strictly true, I just got into a rut playing a small number of compilation albums, ignoring all else. I then decided to be a bit more systematic and all-embracing, and I put this CD on with trepidation. I was aware by then of the familiarity/nostalgia school of musical appreciation. Just because I knew the songs inside out and they brought back memories of a time of my life, didn't actually make them any good.
I realised then, and I realise again today that the biggest criticisms of this album are
- the packaging is low rent - an eight page booklet with a bit of hagiography, a track listing and pictures of the singles - hey, I've got the majority of the singles, on 7" vinyl, with their exciting full colour full picture cases
- it isn't on vinyl. I'm not a big fan of vinyl. What with broken needles, jumping needles, pieces of fluff that ruin an entire section, well, I'm definitely a CD girl. But Adam and the Ants demand to be played on vinyl, I think, to reflect the raw passion inherent in the music
Adam and the Ants exemplify more than any other pop band how percussion can be musical in itself. I got into Adam and the Ants in that difficult teen stage of my life. 16 October 1980, to be precise. Yes, I still know the date on which they first appeared on Top of the Pops. Without having to look it up. They were my band of my teenage years. And thus, it is difficult to be objective.
But I still think that lyrically, melodically and drumly, they are a cut above everything else in the poposhere*. This is me listening objectively. This is me already wanting to play the whole album again even before it has finished.
I have various Adam albums on vinyl and have previously blogged them Unplug the jukebox and do us all a favour... and Strip and Singles, both from January 2004. Ouch, that somehow seems longer ago than the heyday of Adam...
As any Antperson knows, there came a point where Adam (reverse D, please) and the Ants became Adam Ant. At the time it seemed important, but in retrospect it is less important than the hiatus. Basically those ℗ 1978 - 1983 are sheer genius. Those from 1985-1989 are, to be honest, forgettable.
So the good ones. Prince Charming. The acoustic guitar, the grinding sound, the fact the song deliberately seems to take ages to get started, then we have that wonderful chorus "Ridicule is nothing to be scared of..." and the howling, followed by a change of key, before reverting for the chorus And no, I can't do the Prince Charming dance, but then I couldn't back then, either. And I'm still word perfect in singalong.
Kings of the Wild Frontier: Perfect example of how powerful the double drumkit is. I was watching the Marie Antoinette film the other day and this proved to be a surprisingly perfect soundtrack for a pre-Revolutionary masqued ball. Who'd have known! (Actually, any real Ants fan will know that the classic jacket was researched by Adam on a visit to Les Invalides...so everything connects...)
Apollo 9 is very good for post-hiatus Adam. Loud and raucous, but, ultimately, not as satisfying as the earlier stuff. And really quite nonsense, I think.
Dog Eat Dog is for me the weakest of the singles from 'Kings' album. That doesn't make it a bad song, far from it.
On YouTube someone has commented
Thank God i was a teenager when these boys were around it was a magical time in music history and wouldn't change that for anything in the world. A sentiment I share wholeheartedly. Although, I wonder how different it would have been to have been me then, and them then, but with t'internet, downloads, YouTube, MTV, PVRs etc. Would I have been even more obsessed?
Puss 'N Boots. What I like most about this is the staccato rhythm. And the way it pauses and then changes key. Marco Pirroni had more music in his little finger than most of today's manufactured crap have in their entire group and entourage combined...
Goody Two Shoes reminds me so much of the long hot summer of 1982, lying awake trying to get to sleep listening to the radio.Furious drumbeat, but a great melodic line, and funky brass. For a few weeks I even followed the advice "Don't drink, don't smoke". It didn't last, obviously, after all I was fourteen. A very shrewd critique of the celebrity culture, and an attack on the media. I didn't fully understand it then, but it certainly made me think.
Strip isn't the best song off that album - an album I discuss in more depth in the post linked above. At the time I was Guardian Woman and I did question this song, and this album from a radical militant feminist viewpoint. I decided - with all the wisdom of a 15 year old virgin - that it was okay, because it did not objectify women, or if it did, it was part of a mutually pleasing sexual game where both participants had equal validity. I concluded I would never become Andrea Dworkin!
Young Parisians pre-dates all the chart success and the loud drums and rock and roll, pre-dates the radical change in line-up, IIRC the A&tA line-up then was later to form the backbones of Bow Wow Wow. The style is entirely different, a ballad-like style that somehow conjures up smoke-filled bars of the Left Bank (although my time in Paris has never extended beyond half a day changing trains en route back from Geneve). Deutscher Girls is similar, but much darker. Is there a music genre called Pop Noir?
Cartrouble, with the immortal line "Have you ever had to push?".There is also the "other" Cartrouble which is not on this album, but I do have on vinyl...I might have to get a record player one of these days. I always felt uncomfortable about the lyrics of that. Best not dwell too much...
Physical (You're So) is among the sexiest songs ever recorded. Pure Sex (isn't that what the tattoo said...?). Even as a fifteen year old virgin, I was able to grasp that, especially the grinding. I always felt that Adam's songs about sex were the expression of a man who really loved women. If I had gone down the Andrea Dworkin role I would have felt uncomfortable, instead I decided to go down the Libertine road of saying that adult consenting sex is great, and as liberated woman, I am quite capable of determining whether to give consent and knowing whether or not I did.
Friend or Foe is energetic, with the characteristic drumming, and with added brass. There was a short period in the early eighties when quite a few pop bands, whether the 'real instrument' bands such as Adam, or the synthesised electronic bands (who, in retrospect, are responsible for killing music - not home taping) experimented with brass, and according to the bombastic pseudo-authoritarian know-all know-nothings that postured as presenters on Radio 1, this was the arrival of jazz funk. Hmm, it was short lived, and like so much music, it was derivative sampling fusion. Good if it's done well, tired if it's done thoughtlessly
Ant Rap is my karaoke track. Or it would be if a) I did karaoke and b) this was included in standard karaoke sets. So much more satisfying that "Feelings..." or "Eye of the Tiger". For a while I actually believed I could rap. I then realised that I didn't especially want to be a rapper. I think of my performance of AntRap as being a cross between reciting and singing. A mesmeric rhythm, very sophisticated. Somewhat in the style of minimalists such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Actually, I was quite a Steve Reich fan back then, but I've only just noticed the connection
The anthemic, epoch-making, eponymous track. And you know, from that day to this, I have never consciously tread on an ant. I love the latest comment left on YouTube to this - "he was so f'ing hot!!!!!!!!" Oh yes!
And finally, the greatest Adam and the Ants song, and a definite contender for my all-time best songs album: Stand and Deliver. Of course, we all remember the Da Diddly Qua Qua. And the innovative use of drumsticks as actual percussion instruments. And the guitar. And the video. What can I say? Straight in at number one and hitting and holding for five weeks. Correct me if I'm wrong. I ought to know - I salvaged my file of the entire 1980s Top Twenties from my mother's house the other week. They are dangerously close at hand. I refuse to fact-check.
SwapShop interview from 1981 - I wonder, did somebody record it on video back then, and recently digitise it to upload to YouTube?
You know,when I started "All the records by 40" Project, it crossed my mind that it would be nice to provide actual musical links, but didn't really know how. How fast t'internet moves... so many videos are available on YouTube, but if not, I could have uploaded audio tracks to Yahoo Groups, or audio or video to Rapidshare. I also have this album on video, but until this weekend I didn't have the means to digitise it. Yet when I were a lass, it was a matter of some regret to have to miss an airing of an Ant video on TOTP or Swap Shop or whatever.
Until my dying day, I will always be a devoted Adam and the Ants fan. Sex music for Ant people, Ant music for Sex people.
* equal with kd lang and Billy Bragg
