DON'T YOU EVER, DON'T YOU EVER STOP BEING DANDY, SHOWING ME YOU'RE HANDSOME: A Step-By-Step Analysis of the "Prince Charming" Music Video.
0:29 - My best friend and I were watching this video with the sound very low until this point. We had no idea what song it was, we just heard some faint screaming and saw some sinister-looking dandies and a strange Cinderello and were mildly terrified. By the time the big-nosed goth harpist made the scene, we knew we were in for something really quite special, so we turned on the sound full blast. To really set the scene, imagine watching this as the sun rises in an apartment in a dark city. Too surreal for words.
0:36 - I think all the men in this video (excluding the guy who is basically The Crow doing his best Newsom impression) are pretty bangin', especially when they're done up in that New Romantic makeup.
0:57 - I symbolically accepted that invitation and have been trying to master the Prince Charming for just about a whole day non-stop now. My two male roommates were irritated at first by my constant replaying of the video, but I got them to try to coordinate their hip swiveling along with me and now one of us is humming the song at all times. You'll see the dance in its full glory soon enough in the video.
1:14 - My favorite part. Oiled-up abdominal angels! A fairy godmother that looks just like Anna Nicole (may that sweet princess rest in peace)! Bum swinging of the highest caliber, and tons of pointing! This, my friends, is how the Prince Charming was meant to be danced.
1:35 - BABY PANTHER
1:44 - Animal Collective bit this song's style clean off. Doesn't it sound a lot like "Derek," as well as some of their earlier stuff?
1:50 - That's right, get haughty with it, you know you're the most outlandish thing at the New Age ball so you may as well flaunt it. I know I would, Prince Charming.
1:57 - You think they'd have been happy with a simple double- or triple-take of Prince Charming's daring chandelier stunt, but I guess it impressed the guests, i.e. Girl in the Ill-Fitting Flat Hat and Diamond Necklace Ladies, enough for a quadruple.
2:09 - Much as this guy creeps me out, I love his very pronounced strumming movements. He smacks that harp around like it talked back to him when he had had a few cold ones.
2:14 - I honestly feel like cheering whenever Anna and the sex angels make the scene.
2:27 - You know a new dance sensation is sweeping the nation when it follows the classic sequence that makes that evident - one person leading it up in front, backed by a room full of awed antecedents, working as one glorious, arm-crossing machine.
2:51 - I really can't pretend I know what the fuck is happening here. Smash the mirror so that a muchacho can emerge, complete with fake beard? Then we have a bodysuit'd horror, an effeminate sheik, and Ichabod Crane. When I saw this video on TV, there was also a Godfatherly suit type that for some reason isn't in any of the videos online. Hmmmmm. This video's narrative is kind of understandable up until this point, but the whole end is a shambles. I have no idea if there's some kind of context I'm missing or if it really is as nonsensical as it seems. 1981 was a very freaky time, apparently.
Adam and the Ants own me right now. Get the album, also called Prince Charming, and bug out with me...but skip "Ant Rap." It's for your own good.
0:29 - My best friend and I were watching this video with the sound very low until this point. We had no idea what song it was, we just heard some faint screaming and saw some sinister-looking dandies and a strange Cinderello and were mildly terrified. By the time the big-nosed goth harpist made the scene, we knew we were in for something really quite special, so we turned on the sound full blast. To really set the scene, imagine watching this as the sun rises in an apartment in a dark city. Too surreal for words.
0:36 - I think all the men in this video (excluding the guy who is basically The Crow doing his best Newsom impression) are pretty bangin', especially when they're done up in that New Romantic makeup.
0:57 - I symbolically accepted that invitation and have been trying to master the Prince Charming for just about a whole day non-stop now. My two male roommates were irritated at first by my constant replaying of the video, but I got them to try to coordinate their hip swiveling along with me and now one of us is humming the song at all times. You'll see the dance in its full glory soon enough in the video.
1:14 - My favorite part. Oiled-up abdominal angels! A fairy godmother that looks just like Anna Nicole (may that sweet princess rest in peace)! Bum swinging of the highest caliber, and tons of pointing! This, my friends, is how the Prince Charming was meant to be danced.
1:35 - BABY PANTHER
1:44 - Animal Collective bit this song's style clean off. Doesn't it sound a lot like "Derek," as well as some of their earlier stuff?
1:50 - That's right, get haughty with it, you know you're the most outlandish thing at the New Age ball so you may as well flaunt it. I know I would, Prince Charming.
1:57 - You think they'd have been happy with a simple double- or triple-take of Prince Charming's daring chandelier stunt, but I guess it impressed the guests, i.e. Girl in the Ill-Fitting Flat Hat and Diamond Necklace Ladies, enough for a quadruple.
2:09 - Much as this guy creeps me out, I love his very pronounced strumming movements. He smacks that harp around like it talked back to him when he had had a few cold ones.
2:14 - I honestly feel like cheering whenever Anna and the sex angels make the scene.
2:27 - You know a new dance sensation is sweeping the nation when it follows the classic sequence that makes that evident - one person leading it up in front, backed by a room full of awed antecedents, working as one glorious, arm-crossing machine.
2:51 - I really can't pretend I know what the fuck is happening here. Smash the mirror so that a muchacho can emerge, complete with fake beard? Then we have a bodysuit'd horror, an effeminate sheik, and Ichabod Crane. When I saw this video on TV, there was also a Godfatherly suit type that for some reason isn't in any of the videos online. Hmmmmm. This video's narrative is kind of understandable up until this point, but the whole end is a shambles. I have no idea if there's some kind of context I'm missing or if it really is as nonsensical as it seems. 1981 was a very freaky time, apparently.
Adam and the Ants own me right now. Get the album, also called Prince Charming, and bug out with me...but skip "Ant Rap." It's for your own good.
1 comments:
1981 was indeed more scary than you could imagine, especially if you were Adam Ant. Or any Ant. Their look and music took my then-teenybopper world by storm, along with millions of kids like me, who had been all sugared up by Three's Company and Eight is Enough and needed something raw and flashy. So, here come the Ants. Fabulous. And right on their heels came AIDS. Fuck. And all our parents, newscasters, doctors, teachers, and big brothers told us Adam and his Ants were fags. So, short ending, no one wanted to sing and dance and dress like creepy sick butt bangers. Homophobia absolutely KILLED Adam Ant. That was most of the hetero world VS the homo world in 1981. You, Baby Bee, have no idea. It was as horrible as it sounds.
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