Adam Ant, Antics In The Forbidden Zone

Why I haven't seen any copies of this mid-priced best-of (besides the one I quickly grabbed) I can't understand. It's no surprise that Adam's career was hit and miss, but the fact that it was consistently hit and miss throughout makes this comp a much more useful purchase than it might otherwise appear. Adam only had two crap albums (Prince Charming and Strip); the rest were more or less worthwhile endeavours, with individual taste dictating personal favourites. However, the Pop Up Video treatment of "Goody Two Shoes" has rendered ol' Adam almost nothing more than a novelty act, and if you're anything other than a die-hard fan who already has all of this material, you probably won't hear anything else from Adam unless you make a concerted effort to. "Antics" solves your problem: it's cheap, has twenty-one tracks, and will save your perception of yet another artist with a credible pedigree whom the entertainment industry are trying to retrofit into a one-hit wonder in order to create a false sense of security and nostalgia about a decade that actually gave us more than coke, big shouldpads and Molly Ringwald, despite what the tracklistings of 80's retro comps will tell you. Don't believe the hype.

Anyway, the music. It's good! And there's a lot of it! The outsider might not think that Adam Ant had enough quality content to fill a hits disc to capacity, but hey, here we are. Getting the nastiness out of the way first, "Prince Charming" and "Ant Rap" are as painful out of the context of their original setting (see here for details) as they were in it, perhaps more so because every other track on this disc shreds. But! "Antics" almost makes up for Prince Charming's failings by including "Beat My Guest", a B-side so punchy and riotous that it pummels the album it was for some reason excluded from into a bloody pulp by comparison. I almost want to theorize that whoever compiled "Antics" realised what a garbage-dump "Prince Charming" was and tacked on "Beat My Guest" as an apology, but then again, I almost want to theorize that Margaret Thatcher was the third begotten child of Yog-Sothoth, so don't take my word for it. Even Adam's long cold years out of the spotlight fare well here: "Strip" is too stupid to be offended by, "Puss `n Boots" crams just enough glammy wanking to work, any more or less would have been disastrous. So: a worthy if somewhat rose-sunglassed vision of one of the 80's more sadly maligned figures. Car trouble? Oh yeah...

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