Adam Ant

Friend or Foe, Adam Ant's fourth album, confirms the diagnosis indicated by his third LP,
Prince Charming: Adam is a man with limited musical ideas, and apparently he used them all
up on Kings of the Wild Frontier, the record that made him a star in England. Much of his
latest LP simply reprises the familiar elements – ersatz tribal drumming, chanted
background vocals and reverb-heavy lead guitar–in a pallid, uninspired manner.... More >

Telescoping into a year and a half the kind of career that used to take a decade, Adam fires his group, hires some horns, and tops off his meretricious, arrogantly bombastic flop follow-up with some ruminations on life's little ups and downs. The first surprise is that four of these are arrogantly catchy. The second surprise is that all four dwell--allusively in the title tune--on Adam's status as victim-of-the-press, a theme that was death to rock and roll in a less self-conscious age. Still has trouble with real life, though, which is probably why the rest bombs. (Grade: B-)