“We’re just following ancient history. If I strip for you, will you strip for me?” – Strip
Adam Ant – Strip – 1983
Every artist has one. The nadir. The bottom. A record so terrible that either they revive themselves in true comeback form or they never find their way to their previous glories.
In Adam’s case it was by far the latter.
He doomed himself for many reasons. I like to blame Phil Collins. Because, well, why the fuck not? Collins was brought in as a star producer to work on the two singles from “Strip”: the title track and “Puss in Boots”. In and of themselves they are not awful. In fact, they’re kind of fun. But…why? Because Adam’s sound revolved around percussion did they bring in a superstar producer? What was wring with Hughes? He was a drummer?
And then Richard Burgess? Another drummer? For the rest of the record?
What we are left with is a serious misstep. Not the least of which is a come hither photo on the cover of Adam aping Jean Harlow.
I saw him at Radio City for this tour (as well as for Prince Charming). It was fun. But, something was missing. Adam was trying to hard to be relevant in a Michael Jackson world. He was never a dancer. But now he thought he had to be.
Pop had left him behind almost overnight. He would be playing catchup forever. And never quite making it.
How bad is Strip? Pretty bad.
The singles are catchy, I guess, but the rest of the album is atrocious. Partly, or mainly, depending on how you look at it, because the songs are stripped almost bare. (Pun intended). Gone is any sense of fun. All the elements are there, the vocal gymnastics, the excessive overdubbed backing vox, but it’s all steeped in the unctuous, smarmy, faux sexualized semi-soul and dance music. It wants so badly to smolder in places but instead of working like it did on past records it fails so miserably that it should be experienced to understand.
“Baby let me scream at you. You can decline of course. I’m talking to you, girlfriend. Give me some chili sauce.” Presupposing that we all accept “chili sauce” as some erotic term is something Adam never did.
“What do you wear in bed? Some headphones on my head. What do you like to hold? My breath, she said.” This is a chorus. And they’re all this bad.
Obviously Adam and Marco and the rest were going for some uniform theme here. Overt sexuality. But it comes across as pedestrian.
And sad.
Instead of building on the success of Friend or Foe Adam, ever the independent trailblazer tripped so far and hard that he would never be able to recover. Not fully.
Antmusic is gone. There’s one drummer. There are too many violins. What an unpleasant record.
“Saw the couple lying there. Teach each other how to swear. Could this be a dirty night? It could be if they’re doing it right.”
Atrocious.
Grade: D
A-Side: Strip, Puss In Boots
BlindSide: Navel to Neck
DownSide: The rest of it
