Adam and the Ants top 10 songs, ranked

6 March 2026, 14:40

By Mayer Nissim

Stand... and deliver!

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As the punk bubble exploded, it shattered into a million day-glo new wave pieces, with one of the most striking being Adam and the Ants.

Stuart Leslie Goddard was reborn as Adam Ant, and steered his group not just to the success of Dirk Wears White Sox, but after his whole band jumped ship to Bow Wow Wow, convened a new lineup that won even more acclaim with Kings of the Wild Frontier and Prince Charming.

The Ants split soon after, and since then Adam Ant has had his ups and downs, culminating in his glorious 21st century return in 2013 with Adam Ant Is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter.

For this list we're focusing mainly on those stunning few years fronting the Ants, but we also couldn't help but include a couple of Adam Ant tunes from his earliest years as a solo artist.

Read on for the very best of Adam and the Ants.

Friend or Foe

Adam Ant - Friend or Foe (Official Video)

The title track from Adam's first solo album after three band records was written by Ant with guitarist Marco Pirroni.
As with much of the Friend or Foe album there's sax, there's trumpet, and there's enough effervescence to power the song to number nine in the charts, powered by a classic MTV-era video directed by Adam Ant himself.
Puss 'n Boots

Adam Ant - Puss 'n Boots (Video)

The lead single of Adam Ant's second solo album Strip proved that the post-Ants success of his first was no fluke.
It got to number five in the charts, helped along by guest drummer Phil Collins, who also produced the song and got his pal Hugh 'gated drum' Padgham to lend a hand.
Dog Eat Dog

Adam & The Ants - Dog Eat Dog (Live in Manchester)

Inspired by a Margaret Thatcher quote Adam read in a newspaper, 'Dog Eat Dog' the opening track of Kings of the Wild Frontier, the band's first album with their new lineup and new sound – including that two-drummer Burundi beat sound.
While they had made a splash with their first album on indie Do It Records, this single on CBS Records was the band's first top ten hit.
Deutscher Girls

Adam & The Ants - Deutscher Girls

Written solely by Adam Ant, 'Deutscher Girls' was inspired by Liliana Cavani's controversial Naziploitation S&M flick The Night Porter, which starred Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde (as in Dirk Wears White Sox).
The track was originally included in Derek Jarman's era-defining 1977 punk movie Jubilee, which featured Adam Ant as "The Kid", long before its belated release as the band's second-last single in 1982.
When it eventually came out there were a couple of quick overdubs ("Nazi" was changed to "Nasty" and "Camp 49" to "lover of mine"), and the song made it to number 13.
Ant Rap

Adam & The Ants - Ant Rap

Adam and the Ants were nothing if not courageous. After two stellar number one hits (more on them later), they came up with 'Ant Rap', a quirky Ant/Pirroni composition that was one of the first, biggest rap hits in the UK.
Sure, Blondie had already made waves with 'Rapture' earlier in the year, but this free-form rap classic was still a bold move – and one that paid off when it rose to number three in the UK charts.
Goody Two Shoes

Adam Ant - Goody Two Shoes

Adam Ant's first solo single (although some copies exist credited to Adam and the Ants), it featured Adam alongside his now-ex-Ants bandmates Chris 'Merrick' Hughes and Marco Pirroni.
It showcased the Ant/Pirroni songwriting team and Hughes even produced the UK single version, which told the story of the tabloid press's annoyance with Adam's supposedly clean living.
What do you do? Go to number one in the UK singles charts, apparently.
Antmusic

Adam & The Ants - Antmusic

Not just a song title, but something of a mantra.
"Antmusic for sex people, Sex music for Antpeople" was the slogan (and lyric in another Kings of the Wild Frontier song 'Don't be Square (Be There)'.
It sold 100,000 copies and was only kept off the top by John Lennon's 'Imagine', which was an unstoppable chart force after the ex-Beatle's murder.
Kings of the Wild Frontier

Adam & The Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier

"The extent of its success surprised us," said guitarist and the song's co-writer Marco Pirroni.
"We'd written the music as a soundtrack to the visuals – very Eighties. I took that cowboy guitar twang from Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack. I was trying to get everything I liked into that record. And it worked."
The title track of the second Adam and the Ants album (and effectively the debut of the second version of the group), it showcased that Burundi beat and showed that the band wouldn't have any trouble moving on from the David Barbarossa, Matthew Ashman and Andrew Warren lineup.
It was released in the summer of 1980 and stalled at number 48 in the UK charts, but when its successors went top five, it was re-released and went all the way to number two.
Stand and Deliver

Adam & The Ants - Stand And Deliver (Video)

Where Dirk Wears White Sox made an impression and Kings of the Wild Frontier made Adam and the Ants mainstream stars, Prince Charming put them at the very top of the pop tree.
That's underlined by the remarkable success of its lead single 'Stand and Deliver', which scored the band their very first number one (the first of many).
The visuals of the video, starring Adam's then-girlfriend Amanda Donohoe, has endured, as has this million-selling tale of a dandy highwayman.
Prince Charming

Adam & The Ants - Prince Charming

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of
If Antmusic was a mantra, then 'Prince Charming' is a manifesto. A call to arms. Don't you ever, don't you ever stop being absolutely bloody fabulous.
Don't let the worry of people laughing at you stop you doing what you want and being the handsome dandy you are and you were born to be. It's frankly as emotional as it is beautiful.
The video shows the Ants geeing up Adam and has Diana Does as fairy godmother to his Cinderella.
And this weird, affirming slice of pop was embraced by the public, who made it the band's second consecutive number one. Just wonderful.