Madness are really really good thread

[Mr Banlon]

Night Boat To Cairo and the middle eight of My Girl, pretty much klezmer. Are any of the Nutty Boys 'Red Sea Pedestrians' ?

[Brundle-Fly]

Nearly - it was his sister who had a black boyfriend and was expecting his baby, and the racism was directed towards her/her unborn offspring.

Oh gawd, you're absolutely right, Serge.  Gettin' old...

To make amends, here is a lost classic, All I Knew the 1985 B-side to Yesterday's Men.

Jerry Dammers on keyboard duties. One of their best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LMB1BoGQGg

[thraxx]

I fucking hate Madness.
I bought a Sekonda and it didn't fill me with gladness.

[AnthonyJ]

Oh gawd, you're absolutely right, Serge.  Gettin' old...

To make amends, here is a lost classic, All I Knew the 1985 B-side to Yesterday's Men.

Jerry Dammers on keyboard duties. One of their best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LMB1BoGQGg

From 2005:

"The song was a deeply personal response by Madness' saxophone player Lee Thompson to the news of his teenage sister's pregnancy by a black man. Written on tour in 1980, just as the band were starting to break big, it sketches the unfolding turmoil as uncles, aunts, mum and dad faced up to Tracy Thompson's mixed-race pregnancy."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4465666.stm

[iamcoop]

I like some of their more thoughtful stuff. But unfortunately they'll always sound like a bit of a novelty act to me. No doubting their talent, and I can remember them all so they obviously have a knack for a hook but I'm afraid I can't help but cringe a bit if Baggy Trousers or Driving in my car come on. Ditto House of fun etc. Probably says more about me being a miserable bastard than anything else though.

[Rolf Lundgren]

One's Second Thoughtlessness  when accidentally burgling a mate's parent's home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfdlkoOspHY

I'm glad someone mentioned that song, absolutely love it and extremely different to the rest of the stuff. The majority of Madness fans seem to hate it but it's good to irk the purists. Another vote for Waiting for the Ghost Train and Shut Up too with an honourable mention for Bed and Breakfast Man.

I don't know what it is exactly but there's something very comforting about Suggs' voice. Maybe it is just nostalgia for childhood but there's a real familiarity to it and the band in general have always been able to sustain this image of being a group of mates having a good laugh, even when they're falling out.

[greenman]

I like some of their more thoughtful stuff. But unfortunately they'll always sound like a bit of a novelty act to me. No doubting their talent, and I can remember them all so they obviously have a knack for a hook but I'm afraid I can't help but cringe a bit if Baggy Trousers or Driving in my car come on. Ditto House of fun etc. Probably says more about me being a miserable bastard than anything else though.

Driving in My Car would for me be a good example of the kind of thing they avoided previously going too far down the road of novelty pop. Prior to that I would say that image comes as much from the videos and general antics as the music.

[Brundle-Fly]

Driving in My Car would for me be a good example of the kind of thing they avoided previously going too far down the road of novelty pop. Prior to that I would say that image comes as much from the videos and general antics as the music.

By his own admission, Driving In My Car was Mike Barson's attempt at rewriting Bike by The Pink Floyd

The original version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thpwaOoMr0M

[Brundle-Fly]

I'm glad someone mentioned that song, absolutely love it and extremely different to the rest of the stuff. The majority of Madness fans seem to hate it but it's good to irk the purists.

Around this time they became The Monkees for a moment...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROPddira6ZE

[Uncle TechTip]

Is it electronic drums in Please Don't Go? That was probably their worst mistake, the use of recorded drum patterns on the final works before the split.

[Janie Jones]

I work a lot from home and regularly listen to 6Music throughout the afternoon but I could count on one hand how many times I've heard a Madness number played during Radcliffe & Maconie or Lamacq's show.

Is it because racism? Those veteran DJs are of my generation and maybe remember how openly Madness supported the National Front in their early days. For the third time on Cookd and Bombd, allow me to point out that Chas Smash signed my husband's t-shirt after a gig with 'White Might is Right'.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Around this time they became The Monkees for a moment...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROPddira6ZE

Wow, that is very Monkees-esque. Would that be from around the time that Ben Elton was hoping to actually turn them into a Monkees for the '80s? Their mooted sitcom never got past the pilot stage, but in theory if any credible band from that era could've starred in a zany Monkees-style TV series, it would've been ver Madness.

[Brundle-Fly]

Is it because racism? Those veteran DJs are of my generation and maybe remember how openly Madness supported the National Front in their early days. For the third time on Cookd and Bombd, allow me to point out that Chas Smash signed my husband's t-shirt after a gig with 'White Might is Right'.

I believe Suggs and Chas got in with the wrong crowd in the mid seventies when they were the North London Invaders. They were just naive inner city teenagers surrounded by all that NF propaganda spouted at football matches at that time. If it wasn't for 2Tone, I would have probably had some very dodgy politics as a young man. It's about being educated.

They were overtly anti racist by the time they were hitting the charts but were still dogged by a small right wing following. Although, one of my favourite live Madness moments was at an anti apartheid gig at Brixton Academy 1985.  I ended up dancing on the stage with a load of skins. One grinning skinhead threw his arms round Gil Scott Heron and that became an NME story.

I don't believe for a second Radcliffe and Maconie would not play Madness tunes because of historical racism. It would also be a bit rich because Radcliffe used to be the drummer in Skrewdriver.

[Jockice]

A bloke who was later to become a colleague of mine apparently tried to question Chas Smash on this backstage at an early concert. Smash's reply (delivered quite forcefully I believe) was along the lines of: "I have right wing friends. I also have left-wing friends. End of story."

I don't know the full background to Madness's support (or not) for the NF but I do know that if anyone was to totally adhere to the lyrics of the Special AKA's Racist Friend, they would likely end up with no friends at all.

[Dr Rock]

I haven't got any racist friends! Maybe some relatives.

[Brundle-Fly]

A bloke who was later to become a colleague of mine apparently tried to question Chas Smash on this backstage at an early concert. Smash's reply (delivered quite forcefully I believe) was along the lines of: "I have right wing friends. I also have left-wing friends. End of story."

In a 1979 NME interview, Chas was quoted as saying "We don't care if people are in the NF as long as they're having a good time."  The press gave them grief over this comment so Chas wrote Don't Quote Me On That in response.

You don't have to be black, white, Chinese or anything really
Just enjoy, shut up, listen and dance...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBBBWuypBZc

[Jockice]

I haven't got any racist friends! Maybe some relatives.

I bet all of them have some prejudices that others will be annoyed or even appalled by though. Most people do somewhere in their psyche.

[Jockice]

Here's a song by another Two Tone band that I think sums up what I'm trying to say here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1U814saa7g

[Brundle-Fly]

Here's a song by another Two Tone band that I think sums up what I'm trying to say here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1U814saa7g

That's one of those old favourites that I never understood hardly a word they were singing. I had no idea what it was about until now.

[Dr Rock]

I bet all of them have some prejudices that others will be annoyed or even appalled by though. Most people do somewhere in their psyche.

I've thought about and still don't think so. All of them? Like what? All my friends are nice or I wouldn't be arsed being friends with them. And they wouldn't have been hanging round my circles if they were homophobic or racist. I can see it in a small town where you can't be as choosy.

[greenman]

To be fair your talking someone in their late teens, the age were people are forming there political views so its perfectly possible to have become friends with someone prior to those views existing.

[Jockice]

I've thought about and still don't think so. All of them? Like what? All my friends are nice or I wouldn't be arsed being friends with them. And they wouldn't have been hanging round my circles if they were homophobic or racist. I can see it in a small town where you can't be as choosy.

yeah, but racism and homophobia aren't the only prejudices. Have none of your mates ever said they don't like someone because of another factor apart from their race or sexuality. Like their hair colour or weight or the way they laugh? Because that's just as much of a prejudice as any other but you can get away with the latter lot but not the former nowadays.

[Nowhere Man]

These are some album tracks and B-sides from the classic '79-'86 run that I feel are quite brilliant in their own right:

In The Middle of the Night
Take It or Leave It
In The City
Primrose Hill
Madness (Is All In The Mind)
March of the Gherkins
Victoria Gardens

lovely stuff.

[Brundle-Fly]

These are some album tracks and B-sides from the classic '79-'86 run that I feel are quite brilliant in their own right:

In The Middle of the Night
Take It or Leave It
In The City
Primrose Hill
Madness (Is All In The Mind)
March of the Gherkins
Victoria Gardens

lovely stuff.

Good calls esp In The City.

Here's a top ten from me.

The Young And The Old
Crying Shame
Overdone
Missing You
Mrs Hutchinson
Calling Cards
Sunday Morning
Turning Blue
All I Knew
Time

[Serge]

Yes! 'Primrose Hill' and 'Victoria Gardens' are two of my favourites. As I mentioned before, the latter was almost released as a single, before being swapped for 'One Better Day' instead, which is why 'One Better Day' has a sleeve featuring Lee Thompson standing in a garden:



It did make it onto the 'Utter Madness' compilation, though.

[Brundle-Fly]

I remember being really excited hearing Dave Wakening and Rankin' Roger from The Beat  singing on Victoria Gardens.

The simple pleasures one got as a teenager.

[23 Daves]

From post-peak Madness I fucking LOVE One Better Day, and the video's a great poignant look at homelessness.  Would love them to play this or Yesterday's Men live these days but don't imagine it'll happen anytime soon.

I used to work around the corner from Arlington House in Camden and had this song stuck in my head a lot while I was there. Because you would often see various tramps dotted around the place, sitting on the kerb, killing time. One of them used to stare in the windows of our office a lot, just watching - I had the desk nearest one of the main windows and would see him most days, and "One Better Day" would pop into my head. It's probably one of the least patronising and most effective songs about homelessness ever. There's no hectoring or tin-rattling about it, it's just sympathetic and pretty. I've welled up a few times listening to that one.

Comeback era single "Johnny The Horse" is another brilliant track on the same topic, about a Camden tramp who died after a brutal street assault. "Johnny The Horse was kicked to death/ he died for entertainment". They genuinely were about as cheery as Morrissey in a lot of what they did, so it's astonishing they've managed to hold on to the image of being all-round nutty family fun.

While I was away living in Australia I really got back into Madness for the first time since childhood. I got their DVD out of Melbourne library and watched it repetitively. I listened to them and Animals That Swim (who I already loved) a lot when I was feeling homesick, because they were the two bands who summed London up for me better than any others. And I would say that Animals That Swim are, in their own peculiar way, similar to late period Madness around the point of "I Was The King, I Really Was The King", but that's another topic entirely.

[Brundle-Fly]

And I would say that Animals That Swim are, in their own peculiar way, similar to late period Madness around the point of "I Was The King, I Really Was The King", but that's another topic entirely.

I never made that connection before. Shall investigate.  Frazier Chorus sometimes sounded like mid eighties plaintive Madness. With added woodwind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVjHFqePWEQ

[23 Daves]

I never made that connection before. Shall investigate.

It's tracks like this, really: https://youtu.be/kTyTA8sEQ9g

It may just be the fact that I formed a close connection with both those bands at a particular point in my life, though.

[Brundle-Fly]

It's tracks like this, really: https://youtu.be/kTyTA8sEQ9g

It may just be the fact that I formed a close connection with both those bands at a particular point in my life, though.

Yes, I can hear similarities. I'm an idiot though because at first I was thinking of These Animal Men rather than Animals That Swim. What is it with bands from this period and animals? i.e. Super Furry Animals, Animal Collective, Animalgrass, Animalistica,