One-Hit Wondering - Madness

Here's how this works: Each week, I listen to the entire discography of a single one-hit wonder artist. Then, I let you know if their other songs are worth listening to or not. This week: Madness.

When I first moved into my current apartment two years ago, the first thing my roommate and I did was look up at our new, humble abode from our stoop, turn to each other, and sing, "Our house! In the middle of our street! Our house! In the middle of our—" OK, so our house is technically a little off-center, but whatever; it's in the middle enough. Since then, my (ex)roommate has run off to Canada, but our house—well, my house—is still in the middle(ish) of the street. And that song—even 30 years after its release—still holds up as pop music’s greatest domestic anthem. (Side note: I now have a new roommate who is, like, totally in love with Madness and dancing madly to "Our House" whenever it comes on has become a sort of ceremonial thing we do. It happens a lot more often than you would think.)

Before any of you UK readers fire at me with "What are you, American?" again—which, by the way, no, I'm not—I do realize that Madness had tons of successful singles in the United Kingdom and I'll tell you up front, the success was well-deserved. They were so popular in the UK that in the seven-year period between 1979 and 1986, they had 21 top 20 hits. Over here in the US of A, however, "Our House" overshadowed all other Madness songs (with a #7 chart spot), and the only other one that made it into the charts was their cover track "It Must Be Love," which only grazed top 40 at #33. So, I guess what I'm saying is, on our side of the pond, Madness is often brushed off as a silly band who is just really gung-ho about their place of residence. But SURPRISE—these guys sing about a lot more than just their house. I delved into their discography knowing only a good handful of singles, but I wanted to be familiar with Madness in a deep cuts sort of way. As I had suspected, the Camden Town-based band has quite a history behind them. Six years before the "Our House" success, a group of teenage lads got together to form a band, called themselves The North London Invaders, and gave themselves stage names that rival those of the characters in Trainspotting: Monsieur Barso (Mike Barson), Chrissy Boy (Chris Foreman), and Kix (Lee Thompson), who were later that year joined by Chas Smash (Cathal Smyth), John Hasler, and Dikron Tulane (which seems to be his real name). Even in the first year of the band's existence, there was a shit ton of band drama for all sorts of reasons, like lead vocalist Suggs (Graham McPherson) getting kicked out for watching too much football or a saxophonist leaving because he got his feelings hurt or whatever. As you can imagine, the first two years were hectic. Long story short: more silly-named people joined (Bedders and Woody), some of those silly-named people left, then they re-joined, some silly-named people replaced some normal-named people, the band changed their name to Morris and the Minors, until finally, in 1979, they settled with seven members and the name Madness. Whew. Any more of that and I would have called it quits.

Outside of internal band drama, Madness took a bit of a controversial blow early on in their career due to their popularity within the skinhead subculture. They were often met with a Nazi salute from fans, which was an association that angered the band—members have expressed disapproval at these racist gestures and have even gotten into fights with skinheads during shows. It took them a while to shake off the unwelcomed association and now, while skinheads are very much a dying breed, Madness is still kickin' it (and people are still wearing Fred Perry shirts).

Though Madness never stuck to any one genre, they’re widely regarded as a British ska band, which made me wonder: is ska, like, an embarrassing genre to listen to? I feel like it is, but I’m not really sure. I don’t really care, though, because I really dig Madness. I wish I had a month to listen to their discography so I could give you a more wholesome analysis of their musical career, but alas here’s my take after a week-long endeavor:

Madness’ first two albums, One Step Beyond (1979) and Absolutely (1980), were heavily ska-influenced, and that meant some were a little too boppity-doo-bop-bop for me (is that a proper ska onomatopoeia?). Regardless, their self-proclaimed “nutty music” was nutty in mostly all the right ways and proved to be a refreshing escape from the glum English life. I’m starting to understand why Madness was only so popular in the UK. They were so quintessentially British—like, “Shit sucks, but we’re gonna grin and bear it because we’re British”-British—that the sentiment didn't quite hit the same nerve with Americans. It didn't help that everything was masked under thick English accents either. Evidence? Let's look at the numbers: their debut album, One Step Beyond, peaked at #2 in the UK but only a mere #128 in the US, while their sophomore record, Absolutely, had equal chart success in the UK but dropped even further down on the US charts at #146. Awkward.

Here are some gems you neglected, America:

"My Girl" from One Step Beyond. Look at the drummer's face a minute in—he's like, "I don't know why he's dancing like that."

"Embarrassment" from Absolutely is about the taboo of interracial relationships.

In 1981, Madness released Seven, which was a turning point for the band as they turned down the ska a notch and took a more mellow Brit-pop route (YES, HELLO). The first single from that album, “Grey Day,” was a drastic change from their previous releases. It’s about the despondent routine of everyday life—going to bed with aches and waking up with those same aches—and the song ends with the repeated line, “So begins another weary day.” I feeeeeel you.

Except watching this video breaks any aura of seriousness…

It was a new side of Madness that begged to be taken more seriously, and it showed that these guys don’t always grin and bear it; sometimes, the gloom hangs heavy on their shoulders too. It proved to be a good move for the group, as they started being recognized as a multi-faceted band. While Madness was on a constant upwards swing in their homeland, it took them four albums to finally make the crossover to America. The fame came with, as you know, “Our House,” featured on their 1982 release The Rise & Fall—in a way, the title was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I thought the album was pretty good overall, but its hit stood out as a clear winner amongst the other tracks—meaning, none had quite the same hit-making hook of “Our House.” After The Rise & Fall, the band broke their streak of putting out a new album every year and the direction of the band changed as well.

1984 saw a steady decline in Madness’ career, the band finding themselves having to pick up the pieces after founding member Mike Barson’s departure the year before. The result of this was Keep Moving, an album that had the last remnants of Barson’s input but was more or less a post-Barson album. This record is not a fond favorite of most Madness listeners, and it showed the lowest chart success—too slick, overproduced, forgettable, blah blah, blah—but, umm, I don’t get it. I thought this album was awesome—maybe even my favorite thus far… Am I alone in thinking this? Chirp chirp. Be right back, let me listen to it all over again.

OK, YEAH. Keep Moving rules. What the shit? Here’s their single, “Michael Caine,” which was their first release without Barson. At first glance, it seems to retain the Madness silliness with “My name is Michael Caine” repeated throughout the song, but the beautiful melody and the backstory of IRA informer Sean O’Callaghan shows that these guys are serious.

And here’s a more fun track from the album, just 'cause:

Despite putting out an album of really great songs like the above, Keep Moving was relatively unsuccessful. The bitterness from that poured out into their following effort, Mad Not Mad (1985), which was an album that explored a range of emotions: “Fuck The Man” (as in the music industry) to “Things will get better, right?” to “Mike, come back, we need you.” Again, the record was super slick and overproduced (to be fair, it was the mid-80s), inspiring lead singer Suggs to call it a “polished turd.” Harsh, but kind of true—this was definitely a huge step-down from their previous releases. Frustrated and bitter, the band broke up in 1986.

…Psych! They got back together just a year and a half later and renamed themselves The Madness—creative, guys—and put out an album of the same name in an effort to resuscitate their popularity. It didn’t work, so they broke up again.

This second break-up was more serious, and the group didn’t put out a new release until 11 years later, in 1999—this time with the much-missed Mike Barson back on the team. Wonderful, I found, was not bad at all, whereas most reunited-after-a-decade types tend to sour horribly, especially when they hype expectations of a comeback with an overbearing album title. They took another 10 years to put out their next album of original material (with a 2005 album of covers in between): 2009’s The Liberty of Norton Folgate. I thought this album was just okay, but once again, the critics begged to differ. Liberty was very well-received, and many publications even regarded it as the best Madness album ever. EVER. REALLY, EVER? Wow. (Now I’m questioning my own taste in music again.)

For a band like Madness, with such a large discography, filled with tons of hits and a small handful of misses, their strengths are best displayed in their greatest hits compilations. I’m a big fan of those “Greatest Hits”/“Very Best Of” albums and Madness has a ton to flaunt: Complete Madness, Total Madness, Divine Madness, you name it. There's a lot to explore with just these compilations, and I think even a super-fan can agree: they are nicely abridged illustrations of the band's excellent musicality. Also, if you're gonna listen, please make sure to listen to Keep Moving too, because it was my favorite Madness record, yet the least popular one, so I need to know if I'm alone in this.

But wait, THERE'S MORE! Madness just released a new song two days ago (I swear didn’t plan this, my timing is so impeccable.) It’s called “My Girl 2,” the sequel to “My Girl,” which, if you remember (scroll up if you don't), was released on their 1979 debut. And IT RULES. Perhaps this is Madness' chance to redeem themselves—to me, because I wasn’t into their last album, and to America because of the whole “Our House” one-hit wonder thing. Does it give the original "My Girl" a run for its money? I can't say at this moment, but it's still freakin' great. Get into it over on Spinner.

I’m so excited for this new album. It’s called Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da, Da—that’s eight yesses in four different languages—and it’s dropping later this month on October 29th. It's like they picked their release date knowing that I was gonna obsess over them this month. Although these things can easily disappoint, the single is very promising, and if Madness takes cue from their older albums like I think they’re doing here, I only have reason to stay optimistic. Whee! Fall 2012 is gonna be total, complete, divine madness.

@kristenyoonsoo

Previously - Johann Pachelbel