Some B Side issues are awful. Most of them, actually. I can remember torturously trying to get through Pisces Iscariot by Smashing Pumpkins. And the only redeeming feature of that was a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide”.
Adam Ant’s B Side collection is a very different animal. In the late 70s and early 80s Adam and his crew were at a creative peak. After punk but before the co-opting of all things New Wave, there were some really great experiments coupled with a sense that life was fun, making music was cool and it’s all about sex anyway. Later Adam would try and fail to be a hitmaker, but that’s always the way; you can’t get a hit when you are trying. Unless you’re Max Martin.
In the early days it almost seems like they had unlimited access to recording equipment and some of the really difficult stuff would find its way on to the Antbox collection. But the treats were the B-Sides. Like the almost Garage Metal version of “Physical” and the Garage Band Jam on “Red Scab” an ode to one of Adam’s Tattoos that ends with Marco’s “Dad” kicking the band out so he can put the car in. The trilogy of Antmusic as Garage Band culminates “B-Side Baby” a track from the Vive Le Rock time and it kicks. Even Adam’s harmonica playing is just great.
The Mexican flavored, “Juanito the Bandito” was probably the last time the world would get to hear how goofy these guys could be.
But my two favorite tracks are, first, the terrific “Human Bondage Den” as bouncy a number as Ant would ever put out. Also from the Vive era it shows, as a song that didn’t make the album’s final cut, just how creative these guys were at the time.
But, the piece de resistance is the B-Side that would come to have a longer shelf life than it’s A-Side. Covered by bands from Epoxies to Nine Inch Nails, “Beat My Guest” is simply great. A riff worthy of classic rock, a subject matter that, while it is ostensibly about S&M, when the chorus is hit, Marco’s gliss on the guitar suggests masturbation. “Beat” is simply on of my favorite tracks of all time.
There are only a couple blah numbers and they come from, obviously, the Strip era (well, there’s also a fucking remix of a Vive song as well) but, other than 2 or 3 tracks, this is a stellar event.
Grade: A
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