Madness

back row l-r: Chas Smash, Mike Barson, Suggs, Mark Bedford / front row: Chris Foreman, Lee Thompson, Dan Woodgate / photo: Eric Watson (1982)

Madness playlist

Contributor: Andy Mackenzie

If you were ten years old in 1979, Madness were everywhere and completely irresistible. They were fixtures on the radio, Top Of The Pops and Saturday morning children’s TV, gamely joining in where previous generations would have deemed it beneath them. As a result, they became beloved by British kids, proof that you didn’t really need to grow up and that you could stay in a gang forever. Every school bag seemed to have their logo biro’d on it (a huge M wearing a pork pie hat) as did every school desk and bus seat.

I’d seen the band on TV but my real introduction to them came via an older cousin. He came around to our house one evening with a small pile of records for me. He had recently heard OMD and had impetuously decided (like the A&R man at Decca Records) that guitar bands were on the way out. Among the albums was Madness’ debut One Step Beyond, a record that would live on my cheap ITT record player for the next few months. My copy had an imperceptible scratch on the title track that caused the record to jump slightly, seamlessly cutting out about half of Chas Smash’s introduction, a fact I only realised when a teacher played an unscratched version of the song at a school disco.

The thing with Madness was their ability to combine light and shade and get it in the charts. Take Embarrassment, for instance, an uptempo sax-led toe tapper that masks a story of a mixed race relationship and the turmoil it creates in a family. I remember listening to it at the time and knew that beyond the musical cheeriness there was something else going on, not that I fully understood. On hearing the lyric “a living endorsement” I assumed that Dorsement was somewhere in North London.

They were exceptionally good at hiding the darkness under a layer of jollity. Cardiac Arrest tells the story of a business man suffering a heart attack on a bus journey to work. Grey Day dispenses with the cheeriness altogether and introduces a darker tone to the Madness sound, a song about the drudgery of everyday life that points the way to their next album, The Rise & Fall.

The passing of time does curious things. One of them being how something frivolous and jolly back in the day can often turn into something that can spark a melancholic pang in the present.
On release Our House was a typically cheery song of life in a crowded working class home, accompanied by a suitably cartoonish video.

Over the years though it’s become a far more wistful listen. A few years ago, I lost my parents which led to us having to clear out and sell my childhood home. At the end of the process, I remember looking around the now empty house and thinking of all the memories attached to each of the rooms and a line from Our House sprang to mind: That was where we used to sleep. It’s a line I still think about when I walk past the house; a place I can no longer visit, a place full of strangers. Our House is a fantastic example of Madness’ ability to smuggle something emotionally resonant into the charts under cover of a bit of a knees up.

From the same album comes Primrose Hill, a song that sounds like a blueprint for Modern Life Is Rubbish period Blur. Damon has often spoken about Ray Davies as an inspiration but there seems to be as much of Suggs in his writing as there is of Ray. For a band as huge as Madness were, it’s odd that they’re not cited as influences more often.

On to something a bit lighter. Wings Of A Dove is quite possibly Madness at their most knockabout, its three minutes brimming over with exuberance. Steel drums competing with a Gospel choir in a joyous distillation of why the band were considered national treasures.

As I pointed out earlier, Madness have a wonderful ability to combine the light and shade of everyday life. Nowhere is this better illustrated than on The Sun And The Rain and One Better Day.

The Sun And The Rain deals with depression and the joy of living. A trudge through rain sodden streets alleviated by a crack of blue sky through the clouds that promises better times to come, and the realisation that overcoming the dark days make the good days even sweeter.

One Better Day is a beautiful, almost cinematic, depiction of how in spite of how hard and lonely life in the big city can be, there are brief shining moments where we can step out of our current situation and find, or at least remember, our real selves.

It’s not very often that the high watermark of a band’s career comes towards the end rather than the beginning, but 2009’s The Liberty Of Norton Folgate is an astounding album.

As a boy growing up on the fringes of the city, London was like the Emerald City at the end of the Yellow Brick Road. I always found trips into town a thrill; it’s a feeling that I’ve never really lost, and this album manages to replicate the feeling I have as I voyage through the capital.

The title track is a head-spinning ten minute journey through the melting pot of London. It resounds with love for the place and its people, carousing through streets like a modern day Dickens, visiting the ghosts of the past while chronicling the mixture of cultures and races that have made the city the vibrant place it is. Starting at an almost funereal paced ska chug, it culminates in a dizzying middle eastern themed whirl of sound. It’s a song that harks back to the band’s roots.

Their debut single The Prince was released on 2 Tone, a label (as the name subtly suggests) that promoted diversity and unity, and it’s fitting that these values are still at the core of Madness.

By its very nature, compiling a top ten list for a band with as extensive a back catalogue as Madness means skipping over some gems. On another day at least half of this list could be replaced by music of an equal calibre, so forgive me if I’ve overlooked any of your personal favourites. Off the top of my head here’s a half dozen more to investigate: Bed And Breakfast Man, Baggy Trousers, Michael Caine, Shut Up, NW5, Tomorrow’s Just Another Day

I really hope that you’ve enjoyed this brief jaunt through the Madness back catalogue as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Theatre of the Absurd Presents C’est la Vie
The 12th studio album from Madness in 2023

Madness Official Website

MIS Online: The Madness Information Service

Seven Ragged Men
The Story of Madness in their own words

Madness Discography

Madness YouTube Channel

The Liberty of Norton Folgate
Concert film directed by Julien Temple (2009) on YouTube

Madness biography (AllMusic)

Andy Mackenzie grew up in St Albans and somehow still manages to afford to live there. He has been totally consumed by music since being given a pile of 7″ singles and an old record player when he was five. He can be found on Bluesky and twitter. He compiles a monthly playlist on Spotify called A Month in the Headphones and occasionally blogs at Puttin’ on the smile.

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