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Adam Ant, born Stuart Leslie Goddard, is a charming rock troubadour from the early '80s who enjoyed a couple of years of high-chart success as an artist of the genre defined as New Romantic, although in reality, it’s Pop-Rock filled with various, clever gimmicks. Music to be seen more than heard.
Endowed with a voice melodic enough, emerging from an emaciated body, painted and dressed in the fashion of the time (a cross between an Indian, an English soldier, and a pirate), Adam embodies a modern quartermaster, also a bass-player, summarizing part of the history of 18th-century Britain and North America. In the previous album, "King Of The Wild Frontiers," he dressed as a Native American with braids and Comanche-colored face paint, narrowly escaping the clutches of puppet-master manager Malcolm McClaren, former mentor of the Sex Pistols, who wanted to turn him into another meat puppet to manipulate at will. He is the "Prince Charming" of this 1981 album, the third with his loyal Ants and the one that finally breaks into the European charts, especially the English ones, thanks to a Pop-Rock-Punk medley with brass, showcasing the handiwork of Marco Pirroni, the loyal right-hand man and author as well as the true musical mind of the crew, a good guitarist in the service of simple, disposable music, which sees the presence of two drums as a lure quickly sent racing into the English charts by a prominent music-image campaign, with the motto "Antmusic For Sex People," that exploded onto the London scene of the early '80s.
I, the de-reviewer, leaped in my chair at the age of eleven when even on Mickey Mouse, there was talk of our pirate rebuked by American Indians, mortally offended by his colors brought to the stage (www.fucine.com). In the previous albums, there was an air of rain dance at the Indian camp, then setting off in search of pirate treasure whistling by the ocean under the "Jolly Roger" flag, but also a sort of self-celebration of the character in "Ant Music." In this album, glossy buccaneers are on stage, like those appearing from a musical (not like Running Wild), where melody here is only a pretext, what matters is the sharp, cunning image, after all, we're in the '80s.
"Stand And Deliver" is the killer single with a trumpet intro and horse neighing, while Pirroni bursts in with the hard sound of the guitar: the single cover explains the whole scene that runs to No. 1 in the Anglo-Saxon 45s. "Mowhok" instead takes us to London in 1730 with the sing-song voices of women resembling a yodel, truly haunting, fading into the guitar riff of "S.E.X", a reflective song, an eerie ballad with Pirroni's subdued but also moaning guitar dominating the track, with a nostalgic flavor; just a parenthesis that preludes to the last jingle by the sea, where the ukulele plays and pirates gather around the campfire. More rock in the track "Picasso Visita El Pianeta De Los Simios": educational arpeggio, rough guitar, and driving tarantella embellish the piece, which declines into a skipping vinyl needle finale, while more rhythmic is "Scorpios" with prominent wind instruments. Noteworthy is the use of two drums in all tracks playing in perfect harmony, giving an extra edge to some songs.
Also noteworthy is "That Voodoo!" with gypsy accents and the punk guitar providing an energetic direction to the song, but there remains always a sense of dissatisfaction, as if the energy needed to make the song take off is missing, or the genius flare to craft a brilliant pop single. The rest of the album is forgettable, however with the great single "Prince Charming" at No. 1 in England, which is quite devoid of ideas, with the refrain-catchphrase, yet reflecting the taste of the time.
The album's artwork features our Adam on the cover, heavily painted and dressed as an English soldier, while on the back are the four Ants with Pirroni, amid the other three because he is somewhat hefty, adorned as “Ready For Boarding” pirates. Our Adam yearns for success in American lands and dissolves the band to continue as a solo artist taking his friend Pirroni with him and releases in 1982 "Friend Or Foe," a continuation of the old sound in a more mechanical manner (especially in the rhythm) that still finds success with the single "Goody Two Shoes" in the U.S. Top 10 singles. A character more famous for the image than for the actual musical proposal, although he was there when Punk exploded.
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