posted
Been a huge fan of his for years. I really like the early albums, but every one of them has a gem. I even have the Jubilee dvd, plus some bootlegs of his somewhere from 79.
Favorite tracks of his:
Zerox Car trouble Young Parisians Stand and Deliver Press darlings Desperate but not serious So Physical Mohair lockeroom pin up boys
Posts: 4413 | From: Where the streets have no name | Registered: Oct 2002 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
posted
Goody Two Shoes and Puss 'n Boots were Adam Ant solo - no Ants. Actually, the single release of Goody Two Shoes incorrectly credits Adam and the Ants, but the Ants were kicked to the curb by then.
Posts: 3383 | From: England | Registered: May 2003 | Site Updates: 21
| IP: Logged |
First ever 7" vinyl single I ever purchased was by Adam and the ants and that was kings of the wild frontier which was released in 1980 but i think it was probably about 82/83 when i picked up a copy of it from my local sweet shop which also stocked a few singles for sale by the counter and had a pretty decent video rental section as well,cool little shop actually.
I've always really liked Adam and the ants,at my school I can remember there used to be a few big playground arguments over who was better at the time - Adam and the ants or - madness
[ 17. August 2015, 17:40: Message edited by: the young warrior ]
Posts: 3243 | From: canterbury united kingdom | Registered: Mar 2011 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
quote:I've always really liked Adam and the ants,at my school I can remember there used to be a few big playground arguments over who was better at the time - Adam and the ants or - madness
Really odd comparison! I think Madness were more consistent, but few groups ever hit the kind of high that the Ants did in '81! And let's face it, when it comes to style... there's no contest! Especially when you're a kid - that white stripe was irresistible!
Posts: 3383 | From: England | Registered: May 2003 | Site Updates: 21
| IP: Logged |
posted
i was never really into madness back in the 80s but sometime in the early 90s,i think 91/92 a mate of mine leant me there one of there hits albums and i took a quite a liking to them.
one paticular track which i really liked was - shut up https://youtu.be/Ul_Kotlqi3k ,i'm not sure how much off a hit it was for them back in the day as i never followed them but i think it's a great track!
Posts: 3243 | From: canterbury united kingdom | Registered: Mar 2011 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
posted
Interesting there would have been a Madness vs Ant debate at your school. I could more imagine Adam vs. Bow wow wow. As for Madness, I always thought the Specials were their big rivals. Madness are interesting in that for years I only knew them for the our house kind of stuff. The albums prior to that were really hard to find imports. I remember how stoked I was when I finally found the debut album and heard all the straight up ska.
Posts: 4413 | From: Where the streets have no name | Registered: Oct 2002 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Riptide: Interesting there would have been a Madness vs Ant debate at your school. I could more imagine Adam vs. Bow wow wow. As for Madness, I always thought the Specials were their big rivals.
fight! fight! fight!
yeah looking back it's a strange one as neither band has absolutely nothing in common with each other but it definitely was a who was better argument - adam ant or madness,maybe it was they both had chart hits at the same time plus you've got remember this was in primary school where you was at an age where you'd probably even debate over who was tougher godzilla or king kong
who was tougher godzilla or king kong?
Posts: 3243 | From: canterbury united kingdom | Registered: Mar 2011 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
quote:one paticular track which i really liked was - shut up https://youtu.be/Ul_Kotlqi3k ,i'm not sure how much off a hit it was for them back in the day as i never followed them but i think it's a great track!
Got to #4 - so pretty big, even if it's not one of their most remembered tracks.
quote:Interesting there would have been a Madness vs Ant debate at your school. I could more imagine Adam vs. Bow wow wow. As for Madness, I always thought the Specials were their big rivals. Madness are interesting in that for years I only knew them for the our house kind of stuff. The albums prior to that were really hard to find imports. I remember how stoked I was when I finally found the debut album and heard all the straight up ska.
Nah... Bow Wow Wow never really got big enough to compare to Adam and the Ants. Plus I think their 'big' breakthrough was sometime in '82 with 'Wild in the Country', and that was well after the Ants had peaked.
As for the Specials, they had a political edge which made them more serious than Madness' good time image. Plus they split at their peak around the time of the sublime 'Ghost Town', which would have been sometime in '81.
Pop trivia: In mid '82 Adam Ant released 'Goody Two Shoes' (his first Ants-less single) the same week as Madness released 'House of Fun'. Goody Two Shoes went in at #5 and House of Fun went in at #8, but the following week Madness were #1 and Adam #2! Adam stayed there for 2 weeks before knocking it off #1 and staying there for 2 weeks. That was Madness' only #1. Quite a well publicised pop battle at the time...
quote:who was tougher godzilla or king kong?
Now you're talking! My heart says Kong but my head says Zilla.
Lion or Gorilla - that's the real question!
Posts: 3383 | From: England | Registered: May 2003 | Site Updates: 21
| IP: Logged |
posted
great bit of info there logan,i kept looking to see if they had gone head to head at some point but i couldn't find anything,thinking back i think i can vaguely remember this chart battle.
it's a strange one where adam went in at 5 and madness in at 8 and then the following week madness leapfrog adam to take number one spot before the roles are reversed two weeks later with adam topping the charts and knocking madness of the top spot.
now that is topsy turvy!
Posts: 3243 | From: canterbury united kingdom | Registered: Mar 2011 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
posted
That 63 movie Godzilla versus King Kong was such a bad movie! Big rubber dolls fighting with each other!
The reason why I mentioned Bow wow wow was because Malcolm McLaren basically stole Adam's backing band and replaced him with school girl Annabelle Lwin. There was this race for Adam to get King of the wild frontier out before McLaren could get his band out with the same Burundi beat. As we know, Adam prevailed.
I find the charts then in England were a lot more interesting and diverse than the American/Canadian charts at the time. I didn't really get Adam Ant at the time. I thought he was just another weird singer like Boy George or Pete Burns from Dead or Alive. Goody two shows was the first real exposure of him for me in North America. That and his over the top performance on the 83 Motown Michael Jackson special.
The charts were so different then. Here, stuff like REO speedwagon, Air Supply and Loverboy were at the top of the charts while Captain Sensible was there with Happy Talk. I just found the British charts were a lot more open to weirder and different stuff. Dexy's midnight runners Geno went to #8 there and didn't chart at all here. Not until come Eileen did we know about them. I find there was a bias against English sounding music here until 82-83. But they still didn't get it. A fantastic band like the Jam didn't make a dent in the charts here at all. And the same goes for a lot of other colorful bands. I guess they treated the Kinks the same in the 60's with their Englishness. And the poor Specials were unknown here until Funboy 3.
Posts: 4413 | From: Where the streets have no name | Registered: Oct 2002 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
quote:The reason why I mentioned Bow wow wow was because Malcolm McLaren basically stole Adam's backing band and replaced him with school girl Annabelle Lwin. There was this race for Adam to get King of the wild frontier out before McLaren could get his band out with the same Burundi beat. As we know, Adam prevailed.
Yeah, but after 'Dog Eat Dog' hit in mid '80, the race was over. It took BWW 'til '82 to get something genuinely successful out, and by then Adam had spent 18 months as the biggest artist in the UK.
quote:I find the charts then in England were a lot more interesting and diverse than the American/Canadian charts at the time. I didn't really get Adam Ant at the time. I thought he was just another weird singer like Boy George or Pete Burns from Dead or Alive. Goody two shows was the first real exposure of him for me in North America. That and his over the top performance on the 83 Motown Michael Jackson special.
They were *incredibly* interesting and diverse. After Punk you had New Wave, then Ska, then New Romantics, then New Pop (last two often lumped together in the US as 'New Wave'). You also had a resurgence in British Metal (Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard) and all the US stuff too. Fashions changed really fast back then. I peg '79-'85 as maybe the most diverse and interesting period in British popular music history.
It's ironic that Adam only really broke through into the States at the same time as he had an epic slide in popularity in the UK. 'Desperate But Not Serious' - the third single from 'Friend or Foe', and a good song - only reached #33 in the UK, which was seen as a massive slide for an artist who at the start of the year was still in the top 3 in the albums and singles chart and could seemingly do no wrong.
quote:The charts were so different then. Here, stuff like REO speedwagon, Air Supply and Loverboy were at the top of the charts while Captain Sensible was there with Happy Talk. I just found the British charts were a lot more open to weirder and different stuff. Dexy's midnight runners Geno went to #8 there and didn't chart at all here. Not until come Eileen did we know about them. I find there was a bias against English sounding music here until 82-83. But they still didn't get it. A fantastic band like the Jam didn't make a dent in the charts here at all. And the same goes for a lot of other colorful bands. I guess they treated the Kinks the same in the 60's with their Englishness. And the poor Specials were unknown here until Funboy 3.
'Geno' was a #1 over here.
Ah... Funboy Three... they were to the Specials what the Style Council were to the Jam... 'The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum' used to creep me out!
quote:it's a strange one where adam went in at 5 and madness in at 8 and then the following week madness leapfrog adam to take number one spot before the roles are reversed two weeks later with adam topping the charts and knocking madness of the top spot.
Kind of... if you remember at the time the Ants had a bigger following, so more people rushed out and bought the single, especially considering it was labelled as 'Adam and the Ants'. When everyone saw that it was Adam alone, and not only that - he'd lost the stripe! - then the sales slowed. But the song was (in my opinion) better, and so it managed to get there in the end. I like 'House of Fun', but 'Our House' (which only got to #5!) is a better Madness song.
Posts: 3383 | From: England | Registered: May 2003 | Site Updates: 21
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Riptide: Been a huge fan of his for years. I really like the early albums, but every one of them has a gem. I even have the Jubilee dvd, plus some bootlegs of his somewhere from 79.
Favorite tracks of his:
Zerox Car trouble Young Parisians Stand and Deliver Press darlings Desperate but not serious So Physical Mohair lockeroom pin up boys
I haven't checked out Jubilee yet. I really need to check it out.
Great list of favorite tracks. I really like Young Parisians and Desperate But Not Serious.
Posts: 232 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Apr 2015 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Logan 5: Goody Two Shoes and Puss 'n Boots were Adam Ant solo - no Ants. Actually, the single release of Goody Two Shoes incorrectly credits Adam and the Ants, but the Ants were kicked to the curb by then.
Oh, yeah, you're right. Completely forgot he did them solo.
Posts: 232 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Apr 2015 | Site Updates: 0
| IP: Logged |
quote:Oh, yeah, you're right. Completely forgot he did them solo.
Ha ha! Eight months later!
Technically, Adam and the Ants was Adam, Marco (the guitarist and co songwriter) and Chris Hughes (Merrick - drummer and co producer). When Adam kicked the rest of the Ants out Marco and Chris stayed, so nothing really changed when he went solo, he just used session musicians instead of band members (which in my opinion made for a less beefy sound, but what can you do?)
Posts: 3383 | From: England | Registered: May 2003 | Site Updates: 21
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
