Artist: Adam & The Ants
Title: Antmusic
Format: 7" single
Label: CBS
Catalogue Number: S CBS 9352
Year of Release: 1980
 |
 |
 |
Tracklisting
A Antmusic
B Fall In
Well, it was bound to happen eventually, I have kindly been gifted an Adam and the Ants single. I use 'kindly' there in the same way you might say "My boss has kindly given me this enormous piece of work to finish by tomorrow", or "She kindly gave me scabies". I suppose I should be grateful it's not a whole album.
What happened was, a neighbour of my brother had hired a skip, and was throwing out some stuff, including a big box of records. He's kept the good stuff, obviously, and passed the rest on to me. I'll be re-gifting the worst of the bunch to local charity shops, but I've kept a few things. A George Benson album, because he used to play guitar for Miles Davis before becoming a soul crooner, Status Quo for pure comedy value, and this.
"So unplug the jukebox/and do us all a favour/that music's lost its taste/so try another flavour - Antmusic!" (Or, as it should more properly be rendered "Antmuusaaaayerck")
Only kept off the number one spot by a hurried reissue of Imagine to cash in on John Lennon's death (imagine there's no money-grabbing record companies, it's easy if you try) Antmusic is not a bad slice of new wave pop. I like the two-drummer sound. The melodic chant of the title is quite catchy. The rapper-style posing and bigging up of their own music is quite funny, even. I suspect, however, that they took themselves a little too seriously. The guitar solo is godawful, and their doo-wop pirate shenanigans annoyed me, especially on the mercifully short b-side.
The video is quite entertaining though. For example, every time the lyric "unplug the jukebox" comes in, the director cuts to a member of the band removing an enormous plug from a socket. Nothing else in the video is gigantic, just that plug. And the 'audience', they just stand and gawp at the band for most of the video. Of course, eventually they are convinced enough of the greatness of Antmusic that they start dancing, but most of the time they look like they have never seen anything like this before ("A band? Playing in a Discotheque? What are we supposed to do?" "Lets just watch them for a bit").
Conclusion: No more please.
