The 1981 Listening Post - Madness - 7

 Madness - 7

#473

By Michael Gaynor

October 2 1981

Madness (“Madness, Madness, they call it Madness!”)

7 (idk why, 7 members on cover?)

Genre: Bluebeat

Allen’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Michael’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Highlights: 

Cardiac Arrest

Shut Up

Grey Day

Benny Bullfrog

Full disclosure: I once spent a couple hours watching every Madness video on youtube (and it was pre-covid so I’m pretty sure there were other things I could have been doing). I love English bands that are huge at home but are one-hit wonders who can’t get arrested over here (see also: Dexys). I played the shit out of “One Step Beyond…” on the cassette deck in my mom’s minivan in high school. 

7 is two steps beyond and pre-“Our House” (which can never, ever be overplayed it’s so musically and lyrically beautiful). 

“Cardiac Arrest” has the signature bluebeat bounce. 

“Shut Up” has music hall echoes and a classicalish piano riff. 

“Grey Day” has a darker reggae sound (as does the bass line in “Day on the Town”). 

“Benny Bullfrog” is your typical “nutty” Madness tune (like “Chipmunks Are Go” on “One Step Beyond”).  

Great album? No. Good album by a great band? Yes.

p.s. Grateful to The Listening Post for making me research this album, “It Must Be Love” is a fave (song AND video), it wasn’t on this album originally (only 1st 13 tracks) but it’s on there on spotify, anyway I discovered to my delight and surprise that it’s actually a cover of an early 70s English hit by Labi Siffre, a Black, gay musician/poet/playwright! It’s a lovely song, check it out! (Maybe you all already knew this.)

https://open.spotify.com/album/5TdKeSLPSowWxKkenaEK04?si=ozb9uSc3Qp68mN_08HTc1A

The 1980 Listening Post - Madness - Absolutely

 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

https://open.spotify.com/album/5HkyBg5Hj4PanOXcWe9i49?si=i9WKM3fnTPGQhtHbDUw6-A

The 1985 Listening Post - Madness - Mad Not Mad

Madness - Mad Not Mad

#357/993

September 30 1985

Madness

Mad Not Mad

Genre: Rock

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

I’ll Compete

Yesterday’s Men

You know what? I like this record. I know it’s not great. But it’s bouncy and fun. It reminds me a bit of Barenaked Ladies. It’s clear and clean and mature and earnest and honest. It’s not the full Madness crew and this is it for them for a while but it’s not terrible. It’s not Baggy Trousers fun. Or Absolutely fun. But I enjoyed the first half of it. Then it really ran out of steam. It’s gotta be hard cranking out album after album. I don’t think I could do it. We had 1.5 records in us. If I had to write another one I’m sure it would’ve been hot garbage. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/mad-not-mad/1443653048

The 1984 Listening Post - Madness - Keep Moving

Madness - Keep Moving

#31

February 20 1984

Madness

Keep Moving

2.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Wings of a Dove

One of the first “finds” of the New Wave era, for me, was One Step Beyond by Madness. The title track was the first song I ever played when I had the chance to guest dj at the college radio station. Well, it would have been if the DJ kept his promise…instead of leaving me there, holding a stack of records and ignoring me for 45 minutes. 

Anyway, that album is one of the best of the era. And they’ve had a few great ones after. This one…is more 7 than Rise and Fall. Sounds like Suggs and the boys have run out of gas. Even a song that should be cheeky, goofy fun, “Michael Caine” is so subdued that I have to wonder where the fun has gone. By “One Better Day” I am left wondering what happened to the boys. I get that some people take a shine to this sort of antiseptic material but it’s sooooo lifeless. 

Only at the very end, “Give Me a Reason” can you hear the traces of the old band, that hint of menace, like music for spies for the ridiculous. Would that the whole album was closer to this. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/keep-moving/1142803801