Madness - Absolutely
#368
by Tom Mott
September 26 1980
Madness
Absolutely
Genre: Bubblegum Ska
Highlights:
Baggy Trousers
Embarrassment
Close Escape
Take It or Leave It
This is ska mixed with Motown, pop, jive, and swing. It's not sexy but it's infectious and a heck of a lot of fun.
I came to Madness a couple years later than this album -- when Our House was a smash hit on MTV -- and was a big, big fan in high school. I saw them live at the Oakland Coliseum on September 10, 1983 along with The Police, The Fixx, and Oingo Boingo. We arrived late and missed Wall of Voodoo and The Thompson Twins. Unfortunately, Madness's set was not stadium-ready and didn't travel well up to the bleacher seats. As I said, I was a fan. Still am.
I was a marching band kid, so any band featuring horns was exciting, but especially a fresh one from England that wasn't Chicago or Tower of Power. I tried to get a flat top like Suggs, but growing up next to an Air Force base, it didn't come out as planned. I was congratulated for enlisting, and my dad liked it so much, he went out and got one too. So much for teen rebellion. But this isn't the music of rebellion, is it? It's a bouncy mix of music hall and Hermans Hermits, Petula Clark, a splash of The Monkees and Fawlty Towers. Some of the band members were decent-looking chaps, so I imagine they had girl fans, but this really sounds like a soundtrack for boy nerds, or folding clothes, or for dancing with your kids in the living room when they're young enough that they still want to do things like that. Fun and funny, goofy and silly, good-natured.
Madness doesn't reek cool "authentism" like The Specials did on their first album, or the wry smarts of Elvis Costello and the Attractions. But Our House (not on this album) is a bonafide feel-good pop classic, right there with Come on Eileen, We Are Family, Walking on Sunshine, and I'm a Believer. And the SOUND of this album feels like the template for the third-wave ska of the 90s: a thick sound, loud bass lines, fantastic layers of horns, and a propulsive carnival organ. I'm very happy to see they've become a British institution. I wasn't going to give this a 4.5, but it's as good or better than another album I gave that score to. Well-earned!
Standout track: Embarrassment
Almost highlights: Disappear - infectious pop fluff that needs Kirsty MacColl singing it
Return of a the Los Palmas 7 - a 2 minute easy-listening instrumental
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