Adam Ant: Adam Ant Is The Blueblack Hussar In Marrying The Gunner's Daughter

ADAM ANT: ADAM ANT IS THE BLUEBLACK HUSSAR IN MARRYING THE GUNNER'S DAUGHTER (2013)

1) Cool Zombie; 2) Stay In The Game; 3) Marrying The Gunner's Daughter; 4) Vince Taylor; 5) Valentine's; 6) Darlin' Boy; 7) Dirty Beast; 8) Punkyoungirl; 9) Sausage; 10) Cradle Your Hatred; 11) Hard Men, Tough Blokes; 12) Shrink; 13) Vivienne's Tears; 14) Who's A Goofy Bunny; 15) How Can I Say I Miss You; 16) Bullshit; 17) How Can I Say I Miss You (reprise).

In a fashion somewhat atypical of «has-beens», Adam's comeback actually culminated in a new album rather than started out with it — for about three years, since early 2010, he had been re­sharpening his teeth on stage, remembering old material, polishing the new one, and generally getting back into character. Actually, he'd invented a new character — the «Blue Black Hussar», which was also the name of his new private record label — but it really only signified a return to his old fetish with 18th / early 19th century styles and uniforms. A return to his trusty old self, really, the last signs of which we had glimpsed back in 1985, with Vive Le Rock arguably being the last «genuine Adam Ant» album.

Now, in 2013, Adam Ant has completed the comeback, and he wants us all to take notice — not only is the album title his lengthiest ever, offering some modest competition to Tyrannosaurus Rex and Fiona Apple, but the album itself is his lengthiest ever: seventeen tracks stretched over seventy minutes, taking full advantage of the CD format in an age when the average artist seems to have already outgrown that stage (and Michael Jackson is dead). Which means that there is a lot here to digest and assimilate — and it might take some serious time, because Adam Ant is not out there to make the job easy for you. The Blueblack Hussar is hardly his worst album, and it is most likely not his best, but it is the toughest nut he has offered for us to crack so far.

Even after five listens, most of the songs still feel emotionally alienated, but not emotionally em­pty. This is definitely the Adam Ant of Wild Frontier and Friend Or Foe, but acting his age: the songs are taken at slower tempos and stripped of superficial wildness (tribal drumming, lunatic yel­ling, martial parade atmospheres, etc.). Adam's character impersonation routine still puts a heavy «glam stamp» on it, but on the whole, his attitude nowadays is not unlike David Bowie's — that of an aged guru, striking a careful balance between the tastefulness of the arrangements, the impressionistic / symbolic / confusing nature of the lyrics, and the retro vs. modernistic pro­duction ratio that could keep both the old fans and the occasional new listener happy.

Clearly, such albums run a very high risk of being flat-out boring, and for many people Adam's latest offering — especially if they put it on with ʽGoody Two Shoesʼ on their minds — may well be the epitome of boredom. The melodies (most of which, strangely enough, have a folksy acoustic guitar foundation, with the occasional exception of a heavy electric riff only proving the general rule) are fairly routine — to get note sequences of this caliber, one certainly does not need to drag a sixty-year old New Wave freak out of the closet. And the «vibe»... well, it is not even clear if those particular audiences that did not grow up on Adam's classic records will get the sarcastic/absurdist gist of it all.

But I think that, according to Adam's own standards, the record is a success. Where, for instance, Alice Cooper remained unable to recapture the crassy horror-show temptation of Welcome To My Nightmare with his direct sequel, Stuart Leslie Goddard has managed to demonstrate that the good old Adam Ant is still alive, sharp-witted, and stubbornly independent. To begin with, he opens the record with ʽCool Zombieʼ, which uses a swampy, slide-guitar-based arrangement to sabotage and blow up the old «Southern rock» values — "for a time I lived in Tennessee, a pretty hillbilly, a cool Zombie", says the guy, ensuring that one place where this record will never get much airplay is any random Nashville radio station. It is not «great» or «catchy» — it is «sharp», and it pretty much sets the general standard for whatever is to come.

The individual songs are often slow, but steady growers. ʽStay In The Gameʼ eventually comes to life as a moody younger brother of the Doors / Joy Division vibe (with a squeaky, jarring guitar sound on the Joy Division side, and catchy poppy vocals on the Doors side). ʽVince Taylorʼ is a morose, but punchy tribute to an old, forgotten rock hero (Adam Ant's worst nightmare, eh?). The mock-sexy, mock-psychedelic aah-aahs of ʽValentine'sʼ have a sad, but decadent flavor that stops exactly midway between gallant prettiness and intentional self-parody (well, at least it stopped for me and hasn't moved an inch ever since). ʽCradle Your Hatredʼ has an anthemic R&B chorus that feels almost as sincere as the metallic breath of ʽHard Men, Tough Blokesʼ.

All in all, by the time we get around to ʽWho's A Goofy Bunnyʼ, a song allegedly dedicated to the memory of Adam's good friend and mentor Malcolm McLaren, you might want to start asking that question on your own. Is it Adam Ant who is a goofy bunny, putting on this retro show in slow mode despite having long since outlived his time? Is it the «public taste», symbolized by the likes of McLaren and churning out demand for silly rock theater? Is it us reviewers, wasting our time trying to sort out the meaningful from the meaningless and ending up with extra frustration on our hands? Maybe we're all just a bunch of goofy bunnys ever since we separated art from its pragmatic ceremonial purposes and started pretending that it has additional meaning...

...in any case, one thing is for certain: a record that gets one to ask these kinds of questions cannot be a total failure. Just like Adam Ant was teasing us in the New Wave era, challenging listeners to a winless game of «guess who's smart and who's dumb», he is efficiently doing the same stuff now, only with a little more restraint and age-related corrections. In other words, this is a confu­sing record — but it is a stimulating confusing record, which is the good kind of confusing, and I give it a thumbs up even despite not being able to say if I «like it» or even «understand it». You will just have to find out on your own; all I can say is, at the very least Adam Ant is not back for nothing — he is definitely back with something, whatever the heck it is.

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Adam Ant: Wonderful

ADAM ANT: WONDERFUL (1995)

1) Won't Take That Talk; 2) Beautiful Dream; 3) Wonderful; 4) 1969 Again; 5) Yin & Yang; 6) Image Of Your­self; 7) Alien; 8) Gotta Be A Sin; 9) Vampires; 10) Angel; 11) Very Long Ride.

Maybe it was a good thing, after all, that by 1995 the world had all but forgotten Adam Ant and certainly had little basic need for his presence. After another five-year gap spent wasting his life on a miserable acting career that still did not take off — although maybe he enjoyed all of it, I have no real idea — and after suffering the humiliation of having an entire new record rejected by his label, he eventually reteamed with Pirroni as well as Morrissey's guitarist Boz Boorer and managed one more album, his last solo offering to date.

Wonderful isn't all that wonderful, but it is certainly a huge leap in sense and quality over its pre­decessor — more than that, it is a notable first for Ant: the first album on which, most of the time at least, he seems to be impersonating himself rather than somebody else. There are no attempts, be they forced or natural, to sound hip to the times or to wring out a hit record at any cost. There are no stereotypes to be adhered to, no genre conventions to respect. (Granted, much of this could have been motivated by the commercial success of new Brit-pop acts like Blur, but there are no specific «Blurrisms» that I could refer to). Even the album sleeve, first time ever, shows us simp­ly «the man» without any special attire or makeup.

Obviously, since Adam Ant is no Paul McCartney or Neil Young, great songs do not come to him easily, and few, if any, of these songs overwhelm other than through the mere realisation that the man has finally decided to talk to us unmasked (or, at least, pretended to be talking to us unmas­ked — you never really know with that breed of chameleons). But this new approach, which com­prises a heavy reliance on acoustic guitars, folk-pop harmonies, and bits of retro psychedelia, at least ensures that when a song's hooks are well written, the song is a marvel, and when they're badly written, it is at least enjoyable.

The title track still managed to hit the charts, but I do not remember it nearly as vividly as the opening number, 'Won't Take That Talk', which by all means should also have been a single, but they probably chose 'Wonderful' over it because of the danceable rhythm. Too bad, because the hooks are sharper and more emotional on 'Talk', a song that may be reflecting that one major cha­nge in Ant's attitude: "Got to stop treating people / Like they have no feelings, / Stop treating peo­ple / Like they have no meaning". An excellent folk-rocker with good acoustic and electric parts, crescendos, and that weird overall feeling of honesty that makes it such a unique opener in the history of Ant LPs: there is something in the way he softly, but firmly pronounces the line "I won't take that talk from no one" that makes you understand he really might mean it.

Second runner-up, and one of the finest Brit-pop creations of the decade, is '1969 Again', with a guitar sound too juicy to reject and vowel harmonies too gorgeous to forget, even if the lyrical message is not quite clear (looks like someone in the big leagues made Adam a bit unhappy). The­re is also the dreamy neo-psychedelia of 'Yin & Yang', the fast bouncy pop of 'Gotta Be A Sin', the Hunky Dory-style folk-rock exhuberance of 'Vampires', and other little things that only come to one's attention through successive listenings, quite warranted.

At the end of the road, Wonderful might turn out to be wonderful: it is, so far, Ant's only album whose meaningfulness may want to unravel itself slowly, an album that shows there is more to the man than just the image far better than even a compilation of his very best stuff from the «cla­ssic» years. The fact that he still has not come out with a new studio offer has more to do with accidental causes — primary among them all the psychic health problems he's been dealing with — but who knows, maybe it's better that way: Wonderful is an exquisitely tasteful and wise cho­ice for a career swan song, and in time, when the number of people for whom the name «Adam Ant» still has a musical meaning dwindles to about ten or fifteen, will be sure to hold its rightful place alongside Kings Of The Wild Frontier and Friend Or Foe as an equally worthy album. Thumbs up; track it while it's still in print.

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Adam Ant: Manners & Physique

ADAM ANT: MANNERS & PHYSIQUE (1990)

1) Room At The Top; 2) Rough Stuff; 3) If You Keep On; 4) Manners & Physique; 5) Can't Set Rules About Love; 6) U.S.S.A.; 7) Bright Lights Black Leather; 8) Piccadilly; 9) Young Dumb And Full Of It; 10) Anger, Inc.

With the release and ultimate commercial failure of Vive Le Rock, Ant disappeared for about four years from the music stage in order to pursue an acting career — dreaming, perhaps, of bea­ting his idol, the Thin White Duke, at least in that particular area. Unfortunately, he could not even place a Man Who Fell To Earth under his belt, let alone a Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence; compared to Bowie's generally pathetic filmography, Ant's list of achievements is arch-pathetic. (Cold Steel? Spellcaster? Midnight Heat? The titles alone speak for themselves). Eventually and inevitably, Mr. Goddard had little choice but to bring back Marco Pirroni and return to the world of note-splicing and leg-wiggling.

Fate was, however, cruel enough to assure that Ant's «comeback» album would be the absolute musical nadir of his entire career. Besides Pirroni, the third leading contributor happened to be bassist André Cymone, notable for several years of working in Prince's band, upon which he swi­tched to mostly producing records for third-rate dance-pop artists, hopelessly — and, possibly, badly — teaching them rudiments of the Prince approach. Unsurprisingly, he tried to do the same to Adam: the biggest catch of 'em all — and the most deplorable results.

Apart from the sardonic, modestly intelligent lyrics (which can hardly be heard anyway behind all the multi-tracking and echo), there is not much Adam Ant on this album, and, sadly, virtually no Pirroni: the crackling, oddly twisted riffs that used to distinguish Ant's pop songs from his com­petition, have been wiped out in favor of primitive dance melodies, and moreover, guitars are frequently used as merely a wall of jarring background noise behind one-finger-on-a-keyboard synthesizer patterns. 'Bright Lights, Black Leather', a lyrically sane depiction of the youth subcul­ture of West Berlin (another hi from Bowie), in the musical department sounds like Modern Tal­king — few things can be more distasteful to my ears than that Godawfully abysmal chucking keyboard sound. No album with a song like that on it deserves a positive review, be it surrounded by a dozen equivalents of 'Satisfaction' and/or 'Hey Jude' (not that such a thing is possible; there must be a mathematical proof for this somewhere).

Actually, some of the songs still manage to be catchy — this is, after all, a carefully crafted and marketed dance-pop album, and 'Room At The Top', with its infectious beat and whoah-whoahs, managed an expected and, from a commercial point, fully deserved dent in the UK and US charts. But it really fits in better with all those other so-called artists produced by Cymone — Pebbles, Jermaine Stewart, etc. — than the good old «Antmusic». On 'Rough Stuff', with its in-yer-face R'n'B-isms of "lagga-lagga-boom-sh-boom", Ant feels completely out of his league — it's a mi­racle they even managed to complete that take, let alone turn it into another minor (non-)hit. Not just out of his league — «pitifully replaceable» should be the right term for it.

In short, I recommend to reject the record on ideological grounds: this kind of music can only be enjoyed when accompanied by videos of scantily clad hot girls doing aerobics (preferably with a lot of bend-overs), and even then, probably only from a nostalgic angle. (Actually, the official video for 'Rough Stuff' more or less satisfies that requirement, so not all is lost). Sadly, there are some good lyrics here that make vicious fun of contemporary social life, all of them wasted on trash muzak that is sucking up to contemporary social life.

Some sources state that Manners & Phy­sique shows a heavy influence of the «Minneapolis Sound» pioneered by Prince — don't believe a word: at its best, the «Minneapolis Sound» de­pe­n­ded on first-rate musicianship, whereas on he­re there is no musicianship to speak of in the first place. Did Prince, even considering the per­manently increasing amount of filler in his po­ckets, ever release a song as awful as 'Bright Lights, Black Leather'? I don't think so. Thumbs down.

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Adam Ant: Vive Le Rock

ADAM ANT: VIVE LE ROCK (1985)

1) Vive Le Rock; 2) Miss Thing; 3) Razor Keen; 4) Rip Down; 5) Scorpio Rising; 6) Apollo 9; 7) Hell's Eight Acres; 8) Mohair Lockerroom Pin-Up Boys; 9) No Zap; 10) P.O.E.; 11) Apollo 9 (reprise).

For their next album, Ant and Pirroni were teamed with the legendary producer Tony Visconti, probably a great confidence boost to Adam given how David Bowie, one of Visconti's veterans, had always been his major idol. At that time, Visconti's reputation as a rock'n'roll producer was pretty much impeccable — serious lapses of taste would arrive only later in the decade, when, in­stead of saving The Moody Blues, he happened to only contribute to their artistic ruination. But in 1985, he was still capable of rerouting Adam's energy to the correct channel, that of smart, sar­castic rock'n'roll instead of the smart, but cheesy pop direction of Strip.

The result is an album much closer in spirit to Friend Or Foe, and perhaps even more consistent overall, although the individual highlights never approach the intensity level of 'Goody Two Sho­es' or 'Desperate But Not Serious'. The title track is, after all, merely a generic piece of boogie — but, throught the collective effort of Ant, Pirroni, and Visconti, elevated to the status of monster glam rock suitable for the Eighties; not the cheesy hair-metal kind of glam rock, no, just a moder­nized version of the same Bowie / Bolan vibe that owed so much to Visconti a decade earlier. Perhaps 'Vive Le Rock' is too smart for its own good to pass for a general good-time rock'n'roll anthem, but for a freak subculture rock'n'roll anthem ("Look out," cries the man, "Rockers going Star Wars!") — why not?

Song after song is steady, healthy, hilarious rockabilly fattened with Pirroni's post-punk guitar sound and Visconti's thick, glutinous production. They get away with nearly everything — such as ripping off Carl Perkins' descending intro riff to 'Honey Don't' for 'Hell's Eight Acres'; turning Chuck Berry's 'Memphis Tennessee' into 'Rip Down' by adding extra bite to both the melody and the now completely inscrutable lyrics; and invoking the spirits of both Gene Vincent and the en­tire lineup of Sha-Na-Na for the foot-stompin' rock'n'roll march of 'Mohair Lockerroom Pin-Up Boys'. And no serious review of the album could be complete without mentioning 'P.O.E.', argu­ably the cheerfulest, drunked-est song about the nuclear threat ever written (I'm sure there must be a reason why the song namedrops Khrushchev instead of more up-to-date Soviet leaders, but then Mr. Ant was eight years old at the time of the Caribbean Crisis, confirming the old idea that most art is stimulated by one's childhood memories).

The album's big single was somewhat different: 'Apollo 9', actually released one year before, was Ant's rather pretentious attempt to invent a new type of «space rock» that would merge classic rock'n'roll, New Wave, and synth pop all in one and make it all fun, in contrast with the astral gloom of the New Romantics. The record buying public was confused, and sales were low both for the single and for the ensuing LP. And this is, paradoxically, its biggest flaw: Vive Le Rock was clearly tailored for hit status, but in between its 1985 release and 1982's Friend Or Foe, pub­lic tastes had changed so much that this approach could no longer chart. Which means that only if songs like 'Apollo 9' didn't try so hard to be commercial... they could be even better!

However, this is all merely cold post-factum reasoning that should in no way denigrate the al­bum's pure entertainment value. The naked fact is that Vive Le Rock means little, if anything, but it brightens up your day in no less vivid a manner than, say, a good Paul McCartney solo record. Sadly, never again would an Adam Ant album be that much fun; its commercial failure threw Adam off the tracks completely, and when he returned five years later, he was never quite the same. A hearty thumbs up.

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