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Adam Ant's pirate look seem ridiculous
and utterly laughable by today's standards, but it was a marketing
gimmick that for a time worked. His band Adam and the Ants represented
the short-lived '80s New Romanticism, the British movement which
spawned the hybrid of punk and disco with a fashion sensibility.
At best the group's music was catchy pop music (i.e. "Kings
of the Wild Frontier"), especially marked by the distinctive
tribal drumming that Bow Wow Wow (which included refugees from
the Ants) would later capitalized on. The sexually-appealing
Ant soldiered on by himself and continued to rack up more commercially-accepted
hits in the States with the frat-boy sounding "Desperate
Not Serious," the swinging swagger of "Goody Two Shoes"
and the silly but charming "Strip." In the '90s, Ant
found himself adapting to the trends of the time such as dance
in the sleek "Room at the Top" and the unplugged bandwagon
with his last hit "Wonderful." Given the man's rep
and erratic career moves, this collection makes a worthy case
that Ant shouldn't be (entirely) dismissed as a '80s novelty
act.
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