Adam Ant

Adam Ant, born Stuart Leslie Goddard, is an English singer and musician who became one of the defining faces of British pop in the early 1980s. He rose to prominence fronting Adam and the Ants during the London punk scene of the late 1970s, before the band's distinctive mix of tribal drumming, swashbuckling visual style and glam-tinged pop rock propelled them to major UK chart success, including a run of top 20 hits.

In 1982 he went solo, quickly scoring international hits such as «Goody Two Shoes» and «Friend or Foe», which carried forward the flamboyant image and hook-driven songwriting that made him a fixture of the New Romantic and post-punk pop era. His visual flair, drawing on pirate and dandy highwayman aesthetics, made him one of the most recognisable performers of the MTV age, and his songs blended new wave energy with theatrical showmanship.

Later albums such as Vive Le Rock showed more modest commercial returns, and Ant stepped back from music for much of the late 1980s to focus on acting. He returned with 1990's Manners & Physique, which produced the hit «Room at the Top», and continued to record intermittently in the years that followed, including 1995's more mature-sounding Wonderful, while remaining an influential figure for the punk-into-pop crossover era of British music.