Adam Ant
B-Side Babies

"The album Adam Ant always wanted you to have!"... So it is written on the back of this CD, from 1994, dedicated to the fans. B-sides of US singles between 1980 and 1985, as well as seven tracks that, on the contrary, were released in Europe without seeing the light in America, and the absolute unreleased "It Doesn't Matter".

The initial "Fall-In" is enough to understand that Adam Ant was, in the seventies, an excellent punkster with great vitality and interpretative abilities superior to those of his "colleagues" from the "Malcolm McLaren stables". That opening, a hurried countdown, his vocalizations on a fast rock... The same solution, but with even happier outcomes, in "Beat My Guest", a sadomasochistic punk piece for Adam, at the time of writing a student at Hornsey Art College and always obsessed with the S&M imagery (and not only that). Another wonderful example of what Adam was (and which appeared only on the debut album "Dirk Wears White Sox") is "Christian D'Or", in which he does nothing but, on an excellent rhythm, list all the things for which he has a fetish attraction...

But this is not a collection of his first period, the most aggressive, the most outrageous, but rather of b-sides from a five-year period, and in that '80-'85 half-decade, we know well how the way of making music in England (and not only there) changed, as well as Adam's style. Ant, always inclined to both sounds and glam poses, mixed this style with punk to give birth to his very personal style, which he himself would name "Antmusic". And of this "Antmusic", as with every respectable b-side CD, there are excellent specimens that only "now" (i.e., in 1994) are finally revealed. The best of all is "Physical (You're So)", a hard glam piece in slow motion with roaring and rough guitars, the well-made sister of "Cleopatra" from his debut. Horny like Morrison but "sexually confused" like an early Bowie, at times he seems to sing like one and at others like the other. A perfect accompaniment for a strip-tease, and when he hits the final high note, it's a show. The track was in the American version of the LP "Kings Of The Wild Frontier" and is one of the most beautiful of his career.

"Antmusic" travels at full rhythm for the entire CD, with tasty fillers such as "Making History" and "Friends (Version 2)", in which he claims to be friends with all famous characters, real and not, from Dr. Spock to John Wayne, from Jim Morrison to Michael Jackson, from Dr. Kildare to Eric Fromm... All to crash parties, yet never managing to do so. Or again, the allusive "Why Do Girls Love Horses", in which Adam, to this question, gives all possible answers (except the one it alluded to, and I alluded to)... The hypervitaminized glam punk is also present in "Red Scab", less driving and more rhythmic than "Physical", but with the same violence. The tracks bear the sound and production of the records for which they were recorded (ending up becoming out-takes), therefore, while the pleasant "Yours, Yours, Yours" and "Kiss The Drummer" sound ingratiating and culpably mellifluous as they were recorded at the time of the new romantic album "Strip", "antrocks" like the title track, "Greta-X" and "Human Bondage Den", prepared for the handsome glam rock album "Vive Le Rock" of 1985, sound just right, easily capturing the attention of a rock-oriented listener.

Fantastic "B-Side Baby... Adam's absolute stroke of genius in introducing the track: "It's 12:22 and I think... But who's coming into the studio? My God... It looks like... It looks like Marco!" and then a riff, then a full riff, then riff and drums... "My God, it's Marco!" among the many hilarities of a band passing time rehearsing and messing around (priceless moments)... "Are you ready Marco?" and from a place without a mic you hear a chubby kid yell "Yeah!"... And so it goes on with Chris De Niro and "Dan" (Bogdan) Wiczling, bass and drums respectively in the 1985 period and of "Vive Le Rock". You can hear from a mile away it is a punk song from his blue period reinterpreted. "I think "Punk" is an overused word" asserts Adam in this track, before getting on Joey Ramone's case, and indeed Adam never felt nostalgic for the end of that period of music and his life, he who was so prolific at that time, and who harvested so little, for faults and blames not his, primarily directable to Malcolm McLaren, the producer who wanted to be (and often succeeded in being) a puppet master. The unreleased track also comes from those 1985 sessions, and is a pleasant mid-tempo, on which Adam plays with his carefree singing, and for which Marco provides an excellent solo.

A beautiful, fun album, that pleased and pleases fans but which contains four-five tracks within reach of the most disparate users. Beyond the sonic differences between the tracks recorded in different periods, disregarding the differences between vintage punk and "Antmusic", this is a completely fun album whose tracks are (excluding a couple not mentioned) indeed worthy of greater audience than they were destined for. The collection is not up to his punk compilations such as "Antmusic For Sex People" or "Who Taught You To Torture? The Demos" (one of which I will one day provide a review for, if "you know who" doesn't do it first), but it is rocking and original enough to be added to "favorites". And then, as written on the back cover, if this is the album that Adam always wanted me to have, well, how could I refuse? Certainly, he could have gifted it to me, given how much he cared and how hard I work on DeBaser to relaunch him!