Adam and the Ants - Prince Charming
#587
November 14 1981
Adam and the Ants
Prince Charming
Genre: Parody of an Adam and the Ants record
3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Scorpios
Picasso Visita el Planeta de Los Simios
Prince Charming
Stand and Deliver
I have listened to this album probably over 1000 times. I did an entire Adam Ant retrospective on my own blog and for JefitoBlog before it became PopDose. I am an inveterate Adam Ant fan. I’ve seen him in concert at LEAST as many times as Bruce Springsteen but I think I’ve been to Adam once more.
Whatever we thought of Kings of the Wild Frontier, Adam and Marco and Chris Hughes and the rest turn up the goofiness and wallop a helluva punch.
The tropical weirdness with horns on the opening track is something no one talks about. “A pompous, self-referential, self-aggrandizing song, it opens with a horn section attack (there's some woodwind in there, too!) and has one of the greatest drum breakdowns in the history of modern rock just before the end of the song.” The 60s spy movie epic drums kick in at 2:30 and are every bit as exciting 40 years later.
Who writes a song about art as bizarre and lovingly as “Picasso Visita el Planeta de Los Simios”?? It’s an exercise in studio antics that goes on way too long but that’s probably because they were having such a good time overlapping all the elastic vocals.
And then the western anthem title track. It’s another song that goes on for a good 90 seconds longer than it needs to. But, I forgive them because it’s so wonderfully goofy and I just wanna put on leather pants, crash through stained glass windows and strut. And MORE WEIRD VOCALS!!
I got this record the day it came out. The big gatefold jacket kind of weirded me out. I mean, at that point it was obvious who Adam was being marketed to. This was the equivalent of a teeny bopper poster. But, dammit, I wanted a brocade jacket, too! And I wasn’t alone. Michael Jackson called up Adam to ask him where he got it. Influencer!!
Does this album have some goofy low ebbs? Sure. I’m looking at you, “Mile High Club” and “That Voodoo” and “S.E.X.”
But it also has the jaunty shanty of “Five Guns West” and one of the earliest white-people appropriations of rap in “Ant Rap.” Yes, Adam was there at least as early as Blondie and his rap was in…FRENCH??! “Liberte Egalite! Aujourdhuis c’est tres tres tres!” But it also has “I knock it on the head and I go for a curry.”, Oy.
In the end, it’s not as interesting as it needs to be, coming after Kings. It’s highs are very high but it’s lows are awful.
Prince Charming plays as alternative New Wave gonzo experimentation and also as a novelty record. And why not? The title track is an obvious rip off of “War Canoe” by Rolf Harris (and they settled out of court for cash, apparently).
The best song is actually not on this album. It was the B-Side to “Stand and Deliver”, (the defining song of New Wave New Romanticism in the 80s), a 10” I owned, it’s called “Beat My Guest” and it has been covered by the likes of Nine Inch Nails and others. I wish my band had a crack at it.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/prince-charming-remastered/206920970
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