I disliked Adam Ant at Best Buy last year, he looked awful and he didn't sell the songs the way he should've. In an attempt to, at least, recapture the past he became a reverse Dorian Gray, every second of his life etched on his face and rotund physique in form fitting Pirate garb.
But I could be wrong you know, because Adam Ant Is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter is the sort of sprawl of an album people don't release any more. Song after song after song adding up to a bizarre vision of post-pop Ant battling the powers of the music industry (he released the album himself) with tough post-industrial noise and Ant-y hard rockers all adding up to a hellish vision of Ant. A self-portrait with unflinching honesty.
Ant, in and out of psycho wards for years, seems to have settled his mental state (the Best Buy gig was nothing if not proof of that) and pulled together an all over the place compilation of recorded tracks, dating as far back as 1997, tied together by Ant's vision of himself as a victim of the rock and roll industry tied to a ships cannon and getting flogged (the meaning of marrying the gunner's daughter) and stepping backward and forward at the same time, like a mind exploding in all directions.
The theory goes that the album would be better with more self control but I don't buy that at all. What makes it an amazing experience is just how far off the deep end it goes, it is alert and scary whether seducing a teenager on "Punkyougirl" or elegizing his former Malcolm Mclaren on "Who's A Goofy Bunny?' a sort of country stroll as English remembrance, preceded by a song for Malcolm's ex wife designer "Vivienne's Tears" -a pretty valid, or at least honest, one-two. Even friend and competitor Duran Duran "Vince Taylor" on maybe the hardest song on the album, a punky little workout, is given his due in this remembrance of life as lived.
At well over an hour, the album goes on forever and hits some fairly low points on its way but really, if only for the opening track, the awesome "Cool Zombie" it would be worth the while, and if for only going after Russell Brand twice it deserves the benefit of the doubt. Indeed, it is something of a surprise and an achievement. Apparently, Adam Ant ain't over yet.
Grade: B+