So unplug the jukebox and do us all a favour - that music's lost its taste so try another flavor

Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts.

19/07/81 : Kings Of The Wild Frontier - Adam & The Ants

Our first multiple visit of the year - I wasn't very impressed last time we met this lot but have higher hopes for this one.

Well. This is quite the album. The good news is that it's much, much better than our previous visit - it all hangs together pretty nicely with a pretty consistent sound. It's a most peculiar sound though being a strange combination of punk, art-rock, new romantic and tribal rhythms - I don't think I've ever experienced any album like it. I would also say it's conspicuously lacking a "Prince Charming" or a "Stand And Deliver" - "Ant Music" is probably the catchiest number but it's nowhere near the same league as either of those two. Did I like it? I'm not actually sure I formed an opinion on that because I was too busy listening open-mouthed at the oddness of it all and this could quite easily have been an album that disappeared without trace - but that most certainly was not the case.

We're at #6 in the charts this week on their 37th week of an impressive 66 week run, with it having peaked at #1 in its 11-12th and 18-27th weeks - yup, it spent TWELVE weeks at the top. The top five this week were Cliff Richard, Randy Crawford, Stars on 45, Motorhead and Kim Wilde with the highest new entry being Blue Oyster Cult (#30). 

Wikipedia tells us this is their second album and the line-up is different from their debut album because Malcolm McLaren had persuaded all of the initial line-up except for Adam to leave and join Bow Wow Wow, which I'm not sure was their best option with hindsight. Critically, it was very well received although our old mate Robert Christgau somewhat bafflingly said "the hooks grate, but that may just mean that when it comes to futuristic warriors I prefer Sandinistas". Commercially, it did very well here, being the best selling album of '81 and winning the Best British Album Brit Award - but it also did better than I expected elsewhere, getting to #11 in Germany, #4 in Sweden, #2 in Australia and even a pretty decent #44 in the US.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version of this for a couple of quid, but if you want to splash out then you can drop £80 on a boxset which includes a CD, DVD, original vinyl and a 180gm gold vinyl. Whether I liked the album or not, I certainly enjoyed the experience of listening to it - it's interesting how massively successful this album was despite it not being an obvious commercial undertaking. I'd also be intrigued as to how often it gets listened to these days - I imagine plenty of people would still recognise all of it but would never actively seek it out.

26/07/81 - A fun visit

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