A very happy new year to all who read this! In the real world it’s just turned 2022, but in Number Ones World it’s the autumn of 1981…
Keeping up the ‘too much sugar before bedtime’ vibe of ‘Stand and Deliver!’, Adam & The Ants second chart-topper comes in with a similarly hyperactive intro. Aaah-haah, heeyyy-haaah! the Ants yodel and chant, like a band who’ve been stranded in the jungle for years, staying alive only by feeding off the flesh of their weakest member…
Prince Charming, by Adam & The Ants (their 2nd and final #1)
4 weeks, 13th September – 11th October 1981
I have the feeling that, back in his youth, Stuart Goddard AKA Adam Ant was the bane of his teachers’ lives (I’m a teacher myself, so can spot them a mile off – the ones you describe as ‘spirited’ and ‘energetic’ in report cards.) Though, to be fair, most pop stars probably were little nightmares in the classroom.
And I think the school analogy can be extended, even after the shouts have faded and the song has slipped into a thumping, clumping rhythm. Don’t you ever, Don’t you ever, Stop being dandy, Showin’ me you’re handsome… It sounds like a playground chant. Prince Charming, Prince Charming, Ridicule is nothing to be afraid of… Or is it a mantra, something that Goddard had to say to himself each morning, before he slipped back into the mascara and lip-gloss required of Adam Ant?
I’m waiting for this song to break out of its plod and really kick. But it never does. There’s a bit more chanting, and a lot of repetition. ‘Stand and Deliver!’ was much more fun. Though, ‘Prince Charming’ is a smash-hit so far removed from the usual structures of a pop song (apparently Goddard chose such a slow pace deliberately, so that it wouldn’t be played in discos) it’s quite impressive how well it did. A sign of just how red-hot The Ants were in 1981.
Like ‘Stand and Deliver!’, ‘Prince Charming’ has another bizarrely entertaining video. Adam plays a male Cinderella, put upon by two dragged-up ugly sisters. Diana Dors, in one of her final screen roles, plays his Fairy Godmother. He goes to the ball, dressed in what is now the iconic Adam Ant look, and the other party-goers gag. At the end, he smashes a mirror, and appears as Clint Eastwood, Alice Cooper, Lawrence of Arabia (?) and, finally, as the Dandy Highwayman from his previous #1. As a video it’s great fun, and as a message it’s actually quite powerful: boys can look rugged as Clint Eastwood and boys can cake themselves in make-up and look like Adam Ant. Ridicule is nothing to be scared of!
I just wish I liked the actual song as much as I do the video. But I’m still finding it a bit of a plod, and isn’t really growing on me. And before you know it, that’s all from Adam & The Ants. They would have just one more hit, the uncharacteristically laid-back (only kidding) ‘Ant Rap’, before splitting up in early 1982. Adam’s solo career will follow on very soon from that, he was very much the driving force behind the band, and we’ll be hearing from him one last time atop the charts very soon.
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I remember hearing this one when it came out and thinking, ‘”Stand and Deliver” was fine, but that’s it – they’re outstaying their welcome.’ The start of the downward slope.
While Stand and Deliver had an element of swagger and panache but where you could still sense the energy of the punk/post-punk roots, this just came over to me at the time as daft overblown pretentious twaddle. Never liked it.
I also didnt rate it as highly as the previous, or the follow up, the fab Antrap which i still swear is exciting and anti -hook and which really got a right old slagging from many quarters at the time. Its good pop music though and its interesting that adam disbanded them at the peak in the same way weller did the jam a year later. A year at the top and cheerio! Not as if he needed to do that really as both the band and his solo records were adam/marco creations. Given his later mental issues it was probably wise to get off the superstar trde pretty quickly…
Mental health i mean…sorry typing off a pad..
I was a big Adam Ant/Adam & the Ants fan. I remember reading about how he lost his backing band when they were snatched for Bow Wow Wow. He was gorgeous and looked better than some women in makeup. He is/was quite original…at least in comparison to some stuff in the states during that time.
He was very pretty. I like a the end of the video when he goes through the different looks. His records are fun, although I prefer ‘Stand and Deliver!’ to this.
My favorites are Strip and Man Called Marco. I played the Friend or Foe cassette to pieces.
He was huge on MTV…he did have his own sound…like it or hate it. Some I did like
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