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This is an abridged version. Anyone wanting
the full article in zipped *.doc or *.lwp just drop me an e-mail.
Skanks For The Memories
The radio played nothing but bands who sounded like nightmare
versions of The Small Faces, and Two-Tone, multi-racial unity over a speeded up
ska beat. We must have been mad, particularly as regards the appalling Selecter.
But hey! it wasn't all Bad Manners and pretending to like Prince Buster; The
Beat were good, The Specials were astonishing and there was Madness
too.
Madness were a bunch of what we used to call "Camden Town tearaways". So, when they formed a band, they called themselves the North London Invaders. After a while, they noticed this was a dreadful name and picked the title of one of the songs they performed, Prince Buster's 'Madness', instead. By bizarre coincidence, Madness turned out to be influenced by the same stuff as Coventry's Special AKA, namely ska-influenced pop with punk rock influences and a highly English lyrical attitude. They d�buted on The Specials' Two-Tone label but ended up on the more appropriate Stiff label, which was the label of their other main influence, the Cockneyesque Ian Dury. Madness' subsequent career was a joyful thing. Single after single and video after video confirmed their image as the self-styled Nutty Boys. They were astonishingly English and all their songs were about knicker-snatchers, blokes who live with their mums, rainy days, school and trying to buy condoms. This could not last, naturally. Madness not only got fed up pretending to be bees in their videos and doing funny dances, but they also wanted to write serious songs. There's not much bouncing up and down in 'Grey Day' or 'Our House' or 'The Sun And The Rain' because Madness, like Ian Dury and most obviously The Kinks, began to stand for a peculiarly English melancholy. They attempted to become an Albums Band, and acquired the obligatory mid-eighties accoutrements of a brass section and the Afrodiziak vocal trio. By the time of their last album, 'Mad Not Mad', they were introspection incarnate and, split up shortly after. Madness began their career as one of the great Happy Pop Groups and grew into the ultimate English pop group, all sad and wise and obsessed with the grey and rainy minutia of daily life. They were frequently astonishing live and are one of the few groups ever who merited two greatest hits albums. It seems strange that their most recent fame comes on the back of someone else's song, (Labi Siffre's 'It Must Be Love') because the songs that Madness wrote are among the best in the world. These days the various members of Madness go under their real names and have proper jobs (one hopes that the rumoured reformation doesn't happen) and that's fine. Someone else can have a go at being the best English singles band (it'll probably be The Wonder Stuff); meanwhile we will all don pork pie and do jerky dancing in honour of the God-Emperors of Pop. David Quantick, NME 29/02/92
Stay Mad 8-)
Simon ICQ - 50212254 I pick at the floor for juicy butts... http://www.suggs.co.uk
A great hom(ep)age to a great man
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