Ant Music

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Adam Ant
“Antmusic” was the third single released in the UK in 1980, from the hugely popular Adam and the Ants album Kings of the Wild Frontier. The first single from the album Kings of the Wild Frontier, was the title track, which was relatively unsuccessful at first, only making number 48 (although it re-entered the charts in early 1981 peaking at number 2). The follow up “Dog Eat Dog” made number 4 on the UK charts. This, arguably, was as a result of an energetic performance on the BBC chart show Top of the Pops earlier in the year. “Antmusic” fared better and peaked at #2 in January 1981, being held off the top by the re-release of John Lennon’s “Imagine” after his murder in New York City in December 1980.

The video to “Antmusic” featured the group playing in a discothèque with a giant juke box, and persuading the young audience to turn away from disco music and dance to the new-styled ‘Ant-Music’.

The chart success of the single was even better in Australia, where it spent five weeks at No. 1, and earned the band platinum certification for sales of over 100,000. Adam and the Ants toured Australia in 1981 and appeared on influential TV pop show Countdown.
[edit] Covers

* Robbie Williams recorded a cover version on the B-side of his single “No Regrets” in 1998.
* OK Go released a cover version of it on the B-side of the single “Get Over It”.
* Hyper recorded a cover featuring Leeroy Thornhill for their album We Control.
* The Charlatans and Dirty Pretty Things covered it live on Transmission on September 5, 2008
* Rogue Traders recorded a song called Would You Raise Your Hands which contained samples from Antmusic including the lyrics “So unplug the Jukebox, and do us all a favour”.