A Critical Appraisal of Madness's Videos
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Last update: 14 July 2005
A prejudiced commentary on the music video, and why I chose
Madness
The music video has always been a contentious beast ever since the
appearance of MTV turned it from optional afterthought - typically in
the form of basic live footage - to promotional necessity. The
fundamental problem is that music is supposed to be listened to, not
looked at; yet, except in rare circumstances, the artist still needs
to be observable in the video, ideally at least appearing to perform
the song. Another difficulty is that it is never clear whether the
video is supposed to be a visual accompaniment, a form of commercial
to promote the artist, or a work of art in its own right. Ideally it
would be the first (or, to most directors, the third), but the demands
of the industry inevitably lead to the second. The end result, in most
cases, is a variant of the "performance video" - essentially, of
course, the artist miming to playback of the song - made to look more
exciting with attempts at weirdness, wackiness or surrealism; often,
due to some combination of lack of budget and imagination deficit, it
just ends up looking clumsy. (For a particularly glaring example of
this, see the "video" for Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".)
This doesn't mean that there are no good videos, of course. The
promotional film for Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" - generally
considered to have the first proper video - looks quaint and
underbudgeted now, but it still stands up as a masterpice of economy
in the way the visuals complement the music: each band member's first
appearance coincides with that of his respective instrument, and the
much-imitated multiple exposures in the operatic middle section
attempt to capture the multiple voices on the record. Other examples
from some years later include the videos for Michael Jackson's "Billie
Jean", "Beat It" (memorably parodied by Weird Al Jankovic as "Eat it")
and, or course, "Thriller", all of which are Works Of Art In Their Own
Right; the wonderfully surreal stop-motion video for Peter Gabriel's
"Sledgehammer"; and the atmospheric monochrome video for R.E.M.'s "Man
on the Moon", which is a very effective visual realisation of the
song's mental space.
Madness's box set The Lot generously provides all twenty-four
of their videos from between 1979 and 1986, which are of considerable
interest for several reasons, quite aside from the nostalgic thrill of
being reminded of episodes of one's youth by some of the best and most
quintessentially British popular music of an era when getting into the
singles charts actually meant something. More importantly, the
timespan of the videos coincides with the development of the medium
from optional afterthought to promotional necessity, and watching them
in chronological order is interesting and instructive in this
respect.
Finally, there's the curious but inescapable fact that Madness, thanks
in no small part to their natural humour and absence of hangups about
acting like complete idiots, were more suited to video than most
bands. Julian Cope reached a similar conclusion in Reposessed
in an epiphany while watching the video collection Complete
Madness ("the best TV group since the Monkees", he offers). The
result is that their videos are generally more enjoyable and memorable
than most, without ever needing to resort to shock tactics: Duran
Duran, thanks to big budgets, are the band most often mentioned in
connection with early 80's videos, but Madness, in their cheekier and
less pretentious way, deserve just as much credit.
A brief history of Madness, and an impressive coverage of their vinyl
legacy, may be found at this site about
Two-Tone music. Locations
in Madness Videos is just that; it bears an uncanny resemblance to
this
page about the videos. At this same page is a listing
of the band's chart placings, from an era when chart placings had
some credibility. Finally, The Magnificent 7 is a
good fan-site.
And now for the videos
Just as the videos tell the story of the medium's evolution, so the
singles highlight Madness's transition from Two-Tone to their own
distinctive brand of classic pop. Each single (plus B-sides) and video
gets a personal opinion, and each video is illustrated with a
carefully-chosen still. Many videos are introduced with a brief skit,
which is described under Intro. Reviews of the albums are added
for good measure.
1. The Prince
A proto-Bez for the two-tone generation?
| Song: Archetypal Nawff Lunden Two-Tone (or, if you prefer,
second-wave ska) circa 1979. A tribute to Jamaican ska artist Prince
Buster, with a lyric which refers to several of his songs, this is
essentially a 12-bar in G with the appropriate stylistic
treatment. The album version is longer and differently mixed, sounding
spacier and better generally.
B-side: "Madness", a Prince Buster cover which was a bonus
track on the band's first LP.
Intro: A brief shot of the "MAD 1" testcard, after which the
band walk into Holt's of Camden Town and reminisce with the shopkeeper
about their first single.
Video: There isn't one as such; instead, so as to have
something to put on video collections, Madness bought the rights to
their performance on Top of the Pops (probably the one on 6
September 1979). They tackle their miming with obvious relish, and
it's amusing to see how young they look, too; Suggs was not yet 20,
for example.
Best bit: Chas Smash's Rude Boy dancing.
|
2. One Step Beyond
"Hey you, don't watch that, watch this!" Where is this man now?
| Song: A rollicking, largely instrumental, sax-led cover of
the B-side of Prince Buster's "Al Capone" from 1964, with a
declamatory introduction courtesy of Chas Smash. Very much a case of
once heard, never forgotten.
B-sides: "Mistakes", one of the band's first originals;
tentative-sounding and somewhat undistinguished, with just two
chords. And "Nutty Theme", an entertaining kind of band theme tune in
Cockney music-hall stylee
Intro: The band, sitting one behind another on a narrow
staircase, perform the song with voices only. The effect is somewhat
ruined by Lee Thomson's wilfully out-of-tune rendition of his sax
part.
Video: A combination of essentially of static shots of the band
miming energetically to the song in assorted graffitti-covered
locations in the vicinity of the Hope and Anchor, plus the first
appearance of the Nutty Train. Standard performance-video fare footage
for the time, livened up by the band's enthusiasm and the humourous
beginning. But why is Suggs holding a microphone when he has no vocals
to mime to?
Best bit: The skinheads dancing, a reminder of a long-gone era
and a reminder that shaven heads need not always be associated with
racist right-wing scum like the N*t**n*l Fr*nt.
|
3. My Girl
 Lee doesn't read
the first four letters of any words.
| Song: A straightforward tune about relationship problems,
with nice details like the ascending keyboard-and-sax run at the end
of the chorus paying testament to Mike Barson's remarkable musical
brain. One of the band's best-loved hits, it was later covered (as "My
Guy") by Tracey Ullman, with no less a personage in the video than
Neil "should have been PM, but lost two general elections" Kinnock.
B-side: "Stepping Into Line", a brisk but otherwise not
particularly notable tune; plus the preferable "In The Rain", which
ended up on Absolutely.
Intro: Mark Bedford, in a ridiculously large hat, introduces
the song during an otherwise unintelligible conversation with someone
at a doorway.
Video: A no-frills performance video filmed shortly before
Christmas 1979 in the Dublin Castle , where the band played many early
gigs; the stage had to be specially enlarged to accommodate them. It's
mainly, and rather strangely, shot largely in close-ups; this aside
it's an undistinguished and unremarkable effort typical of the pre-MTV
era, although they do at least try to make it interesting by taking it
in turns to mime to the last verse.
Best bit: Lee confusing his miniature saxophone with a
telephone.
|
4. Night Boat To Cairo
 Note Bedders at
the back playing dead.
| Song: A manic sax-driven romp in similar vein to "One Step
Beyond", this was written to parody the way "Arabia" was portrayed in
films. It's great fun with an unusual chord sequence and a dramatic
false ending after a portentious slowing of the tempo. Originally
released as part of the "Work Rest and Play" e.p., it was remixed and
released without the band's permission.
B-side, in actuality, the other songs on the E.P.: "Deceives
The Eye", a cheeky and quite funny tale of a shoplifting adolescent,
with a mock-mysterious middle eight; "The Young and the Old", a
despondent look at Cockney stereotypes; and "Don't Quote Me on That",
Madness's affable response to newspapers who tried to portray the band
as racists.
Intro: Two of the band up to their necks in sand spit out
table-tennis balls.
Video: Another performance video, with on-screen lyrics and a
bouncing ball provided so that you can sing along, in which the band,
dressed in military-style khakis, cavort around on a sand-covered
stage in front of a blue-screen backdrop of the Pyramids, and stop to
make deadpan salutes during the false ending. Remarkably, all this
clowning around transcends the obvious absence of any semblance of
budget, and it's far more entertaining than just pretending to play
their instruments would have been.
Best bit: Suggs's entrance, jumping into shot from on high just
before his first line. Honourable mention goes to the dog which runs
across the stage.
|
5. Bed And Breakfast Man
 Not even
xine can keep up with him.
| Song: A tribute to one John Hasler, who progressed from the
band's drummer through singer to manager. Not actually released as a
single, but a nice song all the same.
B-side: None; this wasn't a single.
Intro: Chris Foreman, in front of a row of B&B's, comes into
shot from below and introduces the song in a fake Jamaican accent.
Video: Since this wasn't intended for public viewing, not much
effort was spent on it. The result is a perfunctory-looking
performance video in an unidentifiable location, intercut with the
reappearance of dancing from Chas Smash and a skinhead. Aside from
Mike Barson's clowning around, it's entirely unremarkable.
Best bit: Mike Barson going apeshit at the end.
|
One Step Beyond
Madness's debut album, like many debuts, is essentially the band's
live set captured in the studio. And an oddly eclectic set it is, too,
mixing the ska of "The Prince" and "Madness" with more orthodox pop
like "My Girl" and "Bed and Breakfast Man", the Cockney humour of
"Mummy's Boy" and "In the Middle of the Night", the manic "One Step
Beyond" and "Night Boat to Cairo", and two instrumentals in the shape
of, of all things, the theme tune to Tarzan and the overture to
"Swan Lake". It's all winningly upbeat, with only "Razor Blade Alley"
hinting at anything darker; even "Land of Hope and Glory", inspired by
Lee Thomson's time in borstal, has an irrepressible grin on its
face.
6. Baggy Trousers
 Suggs
tries to rescue the levitating saxophone player who defined a
generation.
| Song: One of the definitive examples of the Nutty Sound, an
unforgettable knockabout ode to schooldays which does its work in just
over two and a half minutes. Chris Foreman recalls that it was written
as a riposte to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall", and
correctly points out that it "didn't have a strong chorus". Nobody
noticed or cared though; it spent five months on the singles charts,
which is unthinkable by today's standards.
B-side: "The Business", an instrumental reworking of the
brooding "Take It or Leave It" from Absolutely.
Intro: Lee runs up to camera à la Monty Python "It's"
man and introduces the song in a silly voice.
Video: Continuing the standard theme of the band miming to the
song in interesting and unusual locations, this video was filmed in
North Islip Primary School in London, and the local kids running
around make the link to the subject matter explicit. Notably, even
pre-MTV, the band already seem to know instinctively what to do to
make the relatively threadbare material work, and even with the kind
of literal illustrations of parts of the lyric (e.g. the plastic cup)
which video directors often fall back on when they're lazy, it
perfectly captures the tone of the song.
Best bit: Really, could it be anything else? Lee Thomson's
aerial antics, indelibly stamped on the memory of all Brits of a
certain age. Note, too, the incredulous look on Suggs's face just
after he takes off.
|
7. Embarrassment
"A disgrace to the human race".
| Song: A dramatic and surprising contrast to its predecessor
and to Madness's image; significant in retrospect as the first proper
encounter with their darker side. Despite the upbeat sound, with two
soaring saxophone solos, this is an anguished and potent expression of
futility, written as a comment on some families' reactions to white
girls having half-cast children, and is spoiled only by being a bit
relentless and monotonic.
B-side: "Crying Shame", a poignantly cheery breakup song which
is the polar opposite to its A-side.
Intro: Unidentified band member (?) flashes in the street,
revealing the song title (mis-spelt!) covering his dignity.
Video: Suggs (in tartan suit jacket) and Lee (floating around
in dry ice) are the stars of this odd piece (the other band members
hardly appear) which, in the tradition of many videos of its time,
tries to say something with a small budget - note particularly the the
expanding-and-contracting brass section - but does little to elucidate
the song's meaning. Nonetheless it's strangely claustrophobic and in
places manages to capture the song's despondency.
Best bit: Suggs's resigned drop of the head at the end as he
knocks away his drink. Simple but effective.
|
8. Return Of The Los Palmas 7
There's a film in there somewhere!
| Song: A cheesy Latin-style instrumental reworking of
Shirley Bassey's "What Now My Love", dispatched with plenty of
insouciance and brio, which makes a great finale to the second album
Absolutely. The seven-piece band's seventh single, with the
word "seven" in the title, it reached number seven after seven weeks
on the chart; can you say "serendipity"? (There's more: there are
seven letters in the band's name, and their next album was called
Seven!)
B-side: "That's the Way to Do It", aka "Odd Job Man". A
competent and mildly amusing B-side about the titular labourer. Plus
Barson's demo of "My Girl", on which he gives a good demonstration of
how not to sing, and a fun live version of Barson's arrangement of
"Swan Lake".
Intro: The song title is silently painted on a large canvas
which is then rolled up and taken away.
Video: Something was need quickly, and it was knocked up from
footage of a band meeting in a restaurant and a variety of short clips
from sports broadcasts, news items, films, and so on, which doubtless
violated numerous copyrights. There are also brief clips of two
earlier videos ("One Step Beyond" and "Embarrassment") in there
too. Amazingly, all this random is the perfect visual accompaniment to
the carefree music. Those clips in full -
corrections welcome!
Best bit: Lee jumps on the table to play his sax part.
|
Absolutely
Absolutely is, depending on your point of view, stylistically
either much more consistent or less varied than One Step
Beyond. Either way, it's an album of two distinct moods, the more
upbeat tone of the earlier album continuing in "Baggy Trousers",
"E.R.N.I.E.", "Close Escape" and "On The Beat Pete", although only
"Solid Gone" compares to the its wilder moments. "Embarrassment" is
the flipside, introducing a more contemplative and downbeat tone which
comes to the fore in "Not Home Today", "Disappear" - with some very
nice piano from Mike Barson - and especially the agitated "Take It or
Leave It". The album stumbles a bit towards the end during "Overdone",
"In the Rain", and "You Said", but then up pops "Return of the Los
Palmas 7" to finish on a high note.
9. Grey Day
Bet that hurt.
| Song: White-boy dub reggae. One of Madness's most sombre
singles; a gloomy and morbid song about the relentless pressures of
day-to-day living and being unable to escape them. The brass stabs
towards the end make it even more ominous.
B-side: "Memories", sung by Chas Smash. A breakup song with
much the same mood as "Grey Day", but nowhere as good.
Intro: The band (minus Woody and Mike), in the same clothes as
the intros to "The Prince" and "One Step Beyond", literally laughing
all the way to Williams and Glyn's Bank (later to be namechecked in
"Calling Cards" on The Rise And Fall). Cut to three of them in
a bed holding up a card with the song's title.
Video: From here on, the videos get more detailed and
intricate, and this one is an interesting example of the steadily more
mature material conflicting with the continuing necessity for the band
to live up to its "nutty" image. Much of it is effective, like the
various invasions of Suggs's privacy and the grey incarnation of the
Nutty Train, and the fact that it was bright and sunny during the
filming is surprisingly effective. Unfortunately this is compromised
by strange images like the rather clumsy illustration of the rain and
the band members falling backwards into dry ice.
Best bit: The sleeper's legs get twisted by intruders. Scary in
context.
|
10. Shut Up
 Note the subtle
product placement for the band's previous (not current!) album.
| Song: A strident and - like the best British popular music
- very effective combination of the happy and the sad. Listen, for
example, to the way the jaunty piano introduction is slashed through
by the guitar chord at the start of the chorus, or to the guitar's
understated howl of pain at the end of its minimalist solo. From a
muso's point of view, it's also notable for featuring something of a
Madness trademark in the way the chorus changes keys through the minor
keys of B, A, G, and F. Apparently, all this was meant to sound like
Slade, in which it fails brilliantly.
B-side: "A Town with no Name", a forlorn and in places
desolately beautiful spaghetti-western instrumental which sounds
nothing at all like Madness. Plus the curious "Never Ask Twice", the
reminisces of a well-travelled person.
Intro: Suggs, in the same tartan suit he sports in the video,
pretends to be a used-car salesman.
Video: Like the music, the video is emotionally ambiguous;
superficially a Benny Hill-style cops-and-robbers romp, it feels
decidedly sinister in connection with the music. Again, there's a
brief clip from an earlier video, this time Suggs's Superman bit in
"Grey Day".
Best bit: The piano falling out of the sky at the beginning,
which brilliantly accompanies the song's opening chord.
|
11. It Must Be Love
Look what they've done to my song!
| Song: A deadpan and semi-serious cover of Labi Siffre's
song from 11 years previously. It provides plenty of evidence that
Madness were a lot smarter than their image suggested; note how the
two verses and guitar solo are arranged completely differently, and
relish the idiosyncratic touches like the jokey accents on the C-D
chord change after the title line in the chorus. It all ends up being
surprisingly and touchingly emotive, and qualifies as one of the
band's best singles.
B-side: "Shadow on the House". The music is much better than
the lyrics, and it sounds unfinished.
Intro: Chris Foreman, with bare feet in canal, warns viewers
not to attempt the "very dangerous stunt" in the video.
Video: Not quite up to the standards of the two previous
videos, especially compared to some of the later ones. Mainly a
performance video against a white backdrop, interspersed with the
usual "wacky" fun bits such as the band singing into a grave, Lee and
Chris playing their instruments underwater, and people in bee and bird
suits jumping on Suggs to illustrate part of the lyric..
Best bit: Clearly very happy, Labi Siffre himself removes his
dark glasses during the last chorus.
|
12. Cardiac Arrest
"Don't you worry, there's no hurry".
| Song: For all that this pays lip-service to the Nutty
Sound, it's a complex and actually quite compassionate tale of a
stressed businessman suffering a heart attack on the way to
work. Radio 1 banned it on grounds of sensitivity, and as a result it
was the only single in a run of sixteen not to make the top ten. The
single version is longer than the album version, for a change, fading
out on an extra chorus.
B-side: "In the City", recorded to advertise Honda in Japan,
and nothing to do with The Jam. Better than you might expect, even
with the silly backing vocals.
Intro: Presumably the opening, in which Chas Smash just fails
to pot the 8-ball over the heartbeat-effect drums and bass.
Video: Another video dense in incident and detail - watch
closely for the brief inserts like Mike blowing his hat off - which
both interprets the song literally and manages to be a similarly
curious mixture of the flippant and the serious. The bus fares went
towards the budget, it says here.
Best bit: The workmen singing the song's chorus to the
unfortunate chap at the end, presumably helping him recover.
|
Seven
Seven is Madness's best album, the songwriting strong enough
that even its silliest moments - "Pac-a-mac" and "Benny Bullfrog" -
don't seem out of place alongside "Grey Day", "Shut Up", and "Cardiac
Arrest". Other fine moments include the atmospheric "When Dawn
Arrives", "The Opium Eaters" (the last instrumental on a Madness
album), and especially the ominous "Tomorrow's Dream", built around
Mark Bedford's excellent bass line. Finally, "Day on the Town" is
Madness's best album-closer; after recapping the earlier lyrics about
ticket touts and fare-dodging, the last verse stops dead on the line
"riots in London" and the song dissolves slowly away. It's reminiscent
of The Specials' "Ghost Town", and just as effective.
13. House Of Fun
Is this brilliant or what?
| Song: Madness at the peak of their powers and chart success
(it was ther only number one single). A story of a boy trying to buy
"balloons with the featherlite touch" on his sixteenth birthday, set
to ever-so-slightly-deranged music which captures his terror in a way
which is both greatly amusing and painfully true-to-life. Amazingly,
they forgot to put in a chorus and had to edit it in later; if you
listen carefully you can hear that it's ever so slightly slower than
the rest of the song.
B-side: "Don't Look Back". "A nod in the direction of chinless
white funk" which sounds nothing at all like Madness.
Intro: None.
Video: A thing of genius which brings the nervous lad's
thoughts and fears to life in unforgettably paranoid and surreal
manner as he tries to buy his "party hats with the coloured tips";
plus, to remind you of the song's title, some footage of the band in a
pretend barber's shop and at the fairground at Yarmouth Pleasure
Beach. With virtually no dead time, it's full of great images such as
the shopkeepers looking down on the viewer to the immortal lines "We
don't stock party gimmicks in this shop" and "This is a chemist, not a
joke shop", and it's a great example of what you can do on a low
budget with enough imagination.
Best bit: Pride of place in all this has to go to the
beginning. Woody bashes out the introduction on a pair of dustbins,
out of which the clockwork horn section of Chas and Lee springs forth.
|
14. Driving In My Car
Don't try this at home, kids.
| Song: Very silly ode to the joys of, er, driving in one's
car, with intentionally clunky and inane lyrics (sample: "I bought it
in Primrose Hill / from a bloke from Brazil"); once again, it's
actually very clever if you listen carefully. Or, put another way, the
kind of genial nonsense few bands would dare attempt, let alone carry
off so successfully.
B-side: "Animal Farm", a semi-serious reworking of "Tomorrow's
Dream" from Seven which manages to be even more sinister than
the original. Plus "Riding on my Bike", on which Lee Thomson redoes
the lyrics in tribute to his contemporary charity bike-ride and
manages to be even sillier than the original.
Intro: Unidentified band member (probably Mark Bedford) stands
by a wall covered in record labels, buys a copy of the single (in
picture sleeve) from a child for 50p, and is clearly very happy
as a result.
Video: Equally silly-but-enjoyable piece chronicling the
adventures of the "MaddieMobile" along the road, on safari, at the
rally, at sea, zooming backwards down the Underground, etc. While not
driving in their car, the band play mechanics and generally goof
around, refuse to pick up the Fun Boy Three, and end up by spelling
their name with their hats - backwards. The only false note is when
Woody tries to mime his drum part on the props.
Best bit: The ominous flashing light on the policeman's head,
and Suggs's strange look just afterwards. |
15. Our House
That's him on the right.
| Song: An iconic portrait of working-class childhoods,
according to Chas Smash specifically inspired by the kind of large
Irish families which are ruled by the mother, and the third (after
"Baggy Trousers" and "House of Fun") in the Definitive Nutty Trilogy.
It's one of the band's finest and most popular singles; when the
string section recapitulates the guitar solo over the final verse, you
know you're in the presence of greatness. It's also about as
parochially British and un-American as it's possible to get, but it
gave Madness their only proper Stateside hit single.
B-side: "Walking with Mr. Wheeze", a bizarre saxophone-led
instrumental. Mention also goes to the Stretch Mix of "Our House", a
very strange experience indeed which, like many 12-inch remixes,
drains a concise pop song of much of its coherence.
Intro: Unidentified band member in flat cap accosting people on
the street and asking them if they've seen "our house".
Video: Once again, this is full of characteristic careful
attention to detail, and the result could hardly be more perfectly
constructed. The strange red and green tones throughout merely amplify
the affection the band members clearly feel for what they're trying to
act out, whether it's playing along in the living-room, watching
tennis or relaxing in the jacuzzi. Chris Foreman even impersonates the
archetypal teenager-miming-with-a-tennis-racket, Elvis, The Beatles,
and a glam-rocker over the guitar solo. (A correspondent informs me
that the house is "near Willesdon Junction and has been used for a lot
of TV such as Our Friends in the North and Andy Capp"; the current
owner is a Madness fan who was "really chuffed" to find out what he'd
bought.)
Best bit: Out of a slew of memorable images, the
blink-and-you'll-miss-it look on Mark Bedford's face as he creases up
during the chorus after the guitar solo.
|
16. Tomorrow's Just Another Day
"All the friendships I have wrecked"
| Song: Another sterling combination of the upbeat and the
bittersweet; a restless and reflective song about someone who's lost
all his friends looking back over his life and wondering where it went
wrong.
B-side: "Madness (It's all in the Mind)", the closing song on
The Rise and Fall.
Intro: Two sandwich-board-carrying prophets of doom argue about
when the world will end, and end up going for a drink.
Video: Continuing the high standards, this combines card games
(filmed in an actual prison) with strange Busby Berkeley umbrella
routines, gambling imagery, and surreal goings-on in the garden. It's
not obvious what it all means, but as with "Shut Up" it's as
unsettling as it is funny.
Best bit: The garden ornaments fighting, anticipating Dom Joly
by over a decade.
|
The Rise and Fall
"Madness's Sergeant Pepper", claims the booklet which comes
with The Lot. A concept album about childhood memories, this is
where Madness overreach themselves: the likes of "Mr Speaker",
"Blue-Skinned Beast" and "Sunday Morning" are overwritten and
difficult to get into, while "That Face" and "Are You Coming" don't
leave much impression, and the semi-deranged "Madness (It's All in the
Mind)", while vaguely reminiscent of "Fever", is no "A Day in the
Life". That said, the opening pairing of "Rise and Fall" and
"Tomorrow's Just Another Day", which look respectively outwards and
inwards, are bittersweet and reflective, "Primrose Hill" is strangely
dreamlike, and "New Delhi" strangely exotic. Head and shoulders above
everything else, and tying it all together, is the majestic "Our
House", which is worth the cover price alone.
17. Wings Of A Dove
One way to keep the fuel budget down.
| Song: An exuberant mixture of steel drums and gospel voices
which achieved Madness's second highest chart placing. It's actually
one of their weakest singles, however; for all the ubpeat tone, it's
noticeably thinner and less smart than usual, and needs a key change
near the end to keep itself alive. Alongside Letters to Cleo, it made
its way into 10 Things I Hate About You nearly two decades
later.
B-side: "Behind the 8-Ball". Another instrumental, which was
written and recorded to order and sounds like it. Better is Lee
Thomson's pensively insistent "One Second's Thoughtlessness".
Intro: TV interviewer asks people at Camden Market if they've
heard of Madness, followed by a preamble in which everyone gets on the
plane and the pilots switch things on. This preamble lasts for over a
minute.
Video: Bright and sunny affair in which the band board a plane
with assorted musicians and backing singers, perform the song, and
disembark by way of a parachuting white van. Like the song, a
reasonably entertaining slip in standards.
Best bit: The mode of disembarkation. They did actually do that
with the van, you know.
|
18. The Sun And The Rain
"There's so much rain I could almost drown"
| Song: An often-overlooked single, this upbeat stomper was
Madness's last Top Ten hit. An ode to the redemptive powers of
precipitation, it's characteristically harmonically complex with lots
of key changes. The performance isn't quite right - the steady snare
in the somewhat insubstantial verses gets monotonous - and it's oddly
mixed, but this is redeemed by the very wistful and much more
effective chorus.
B-side: "Fireball XL5", just over 100 seconds of berzerk
nonsense from Lee Thomson about fireworks. Plus a live version of "My
Girl".
Intro: The band walk into Holt's some years after "The Prince"
and discuss with the shopkeeper what makes weather.
Video: More umbrellas, this time in - where else? - a rainy
street, plus the band dressed as red devils performing inside Suggs's
ear, and a curious subplot with Lee Thomson carrying a rocket on his
back in a reference to the B-side. It feels a bit random in places,
and you can't help feeling that they're getting a bit tired of it by
now, but it just manages to hang together and is generally pleasant
enough.
Best bit: The carefree antics in the pouring rain, especially
when the band are joined by a crowd of fans.
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19. Michael Caine
 Notice Barson-shaped gap at lower right.
| Song: A combination of the faintly ridiculous (sampled
voices and unusually low vocals in the verse) and the undeniably
sublime (the chorus and the middle section), this memorable song is
apparently about Northern Ireland, although this is not obvious. The
eponymous actor's contribution was prompted by his daughter, a fan of
the band.
B-side: "If You Think There's Something". One of Madness's
least essential B-sides, it seems to be about nothing at all.
Intro: A black car stops just in time to avoid running over a
bin bag, and the driver emerges to moan about litterbugs.
Video: One of Madness's best videos; a miniature movie complete
with proper acting (step forward Cathal Smyth) and bona fide scrolling
credits at the beginning. Mike Barson's departure is foreshadowed in
the introduction in which he leaves his piano to play by itself. No
doubt some of Mr. Caine's own films are homaged here; it's a pity that
he couldn't have appeared in person to do his lines, so his photograph
gets put through a shredder instead.
Best bit: The lightbulb breaking, a simple but very effective
image. |
20. One Better Day
 Enough to
move a grown man, not to mention Gwen Stefani, to
tears.
| Song: About as untypical of Madness as can be imagined,
this story of two tramps falling in love is the most effective product
of their mellower and more compassionate side. Moving and sympathetic
without ever being mawkish, it finds glimmers of hope in a nearly
hopeless situation; as Chris Foreman correctly notes, it's "one of the
last and best songs that we all worked on together before Mike
left". Its release was the main cause of the band's exit from Stiff
Records.
B-side: "Guns", in which the thoughtful lyrics deserve a better
musical setting. Plus the much better "Victoria Gardens" from Keep
Moving, which the band wanted as the A-side, and the curious but
inessential largely instrumental "Sarah", for which Lee Thomson never
finished the lyrics.
Intro: None.
Video: A literal interpretation of the song, with some quiet
but surprisingly angry touches like the treatment of the female tramp
and the scene in which Lee gets casually knocked aside by a crowd of
passers-by while busking in the Tube. It's more effective when the
band pretend to be down-and-outs than when they pretend to play their
instruments, but overall it's a success, and the switch from grainy
monochrome footage to colour brings out the song's cautious
optimism.
Best bit: OK, so it's really Suggs and his wife, but the brief
scene towards the end where they waltz together in the company of the
other tramps is, by far, the single most emotional moment in any
Madness video.
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Keep Moving
As befits its time (it was recorded in late 1983), the production is
noticeably brighter and fussier on what Cathal Smyth called "a
well-crafted record rather than an album of great emotional
depth". Thankfully, if "Brand New Beat" and "Keep Moving" tend towards
standard examples of mid-eighties pop, then plenty of Madness's
idiosyncracies survive, most notably on the bizarrely-named "March of
the Gherkins" (actually a pleasantly reflective slice of faux-Motown),
and "Prospects" (the same for cod-reggae), "Samantha", and "Victoria
Gardens", these last two with several ascending key changes. "Michael
Caine" and "One Better Day" are obvious highpoints; however, the
faux-drunken "Waltz into Mischief" and the energetic closer "Give Me a
Reason" let the album down slightly.
21. Yesterday's Men
"Wot's vis?"
| Song: A pleasantly mellow laid-back dismissal of people who
don't know when to give up, and a strong enough song to survive the
overfussy production which saturates the Mad Not Mad
album. Madness's slowest single release to date, alongside "One Better
Day".
B-side: "All I Knew", a contemplative and quite good song about
growing older; plus a live version of "It Must Be Love".
Intro: None, unless you count the band emerging from a variety
of unusual locations during the beginning of the song.
Video: It's very difficult to do a convincing performance video
for such a down-tempo song, and the attempts to make this effort look
interesting - Atlas, Woody's rotating drum riser, another invocation
of the Nutty Train, Lee's sax blowing bubbles - amount to little more
than a rather desparate-seeming sequence of random ideas which lacks
the coherence of the earlier videos. Compare, for example, the video
for The Police's "Wrapped Around Your Finger", which did more, on
almost no budget, with an even more recalcitrant song. The band try
hard, but in the aftermath of Barson's departure and the move to
Virgin something has clearly been lost; if one image sums up how much
this promo misfires, it's the brief shot of Cathal Smyth trying to
dance soulfully while miming his backing vocals.
Best bit: The band enter the studio and see themselves
"performing" the song. The best of Madness's least effective video.
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22. Uncle Sam
A present from the good old US of A.
| Song: A cheery but pointed and unsubtle satire on American
cultural and military imperialism. Notable more for its political tone
than its musical merit, however; the verses aren't terribly exciting,
and the chorus doesn't quite make up for them.
B-side: "Please Don't Go", an uptempo and uncharacteristically
guitar-led song, which is almost better than the A-side. Plus "Inanity
Over Christmas", a very silly festive jingle.
Intro: A rich American businessman emerges from his suburban
English house and swaggers down the path, looking ridiculously out of
place next to British archetypes in the form of the milkman, the
postman, and the clearly annoyed paper boy. A newsreader - the same
one as at the start of "Wings of a Dove"? - then interrupts with an
"important announcement".
Video: Madness's last truly memorable video, a sarcastic and
cynical presentation of the British view of the American view of
Britain (and, probably, Western Europe) which makes no pretentions to
subtlety. The message comes through loud and clear, and the flippant
tone makes it just that little bit scary.
Best bit: The bomb, just endging out the Gung Ho '85
magazine.
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23. Sweetest Girl
David Byrne, eat your heart out.
| Song: This slick but bland Scritti Politti cover was
Madness's lowest charting single and remains their least memorable. As
Suggs remarked it's "too cold and clever"; it's also way too long, and
even the four-minute (from nearly six) single edit seems to go on
forever.
B-side: "Jennie (A Portrait of)"; not great, but with an
interesting atmosphere and would probably have been a better
A-side. Plus "Tears You Can't Hide", one of Mad Not Mad's less
memorable songs, and the potentially interesting but overproduced
"Call Me".
Intro: None.
Video: Another failure, for much the same reasons as
"Yesterday's Men", but without a good song to distract the viewer: a
largely generic studio-based performance video combined with lots of
unexplained and incongruous running around in a factory with a woman
in a red dress. Suggs looks at times like he'd rather be in
Philadelphia, and the admission at the end ("another cheap video")
says volumes. It's all uncomfortably hard work.
Best bit: The Big Suit. Possibly the only memorable image in
the entire video.
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Mad Not Mad
Something of an anomaly, this is Madness's only album on their own
Zarjazz label (in reality, a subsidiary of Virgin), the only one
without Mike Barson (he left when Keep Moving was finished),
and with only ten songs where One Step Beyond had fifteen, the
slimmest pickings one with the fewest songs. Throughout, Madness's
sensibilities fight with the mid-80's overproduction, and often come
off second best; for example, the heavy sequencing on the opening
"I'll Compete" is something of a shock and detracts from its cynical
lyric, "Burning the Boats" - despite the fine vocal support of
Afrodiziak - is practically devoid of anything definitively Madness,
and "White Heat" has a strong claim to being Madness's worst song. On
the plus side, the more contemplative "Yesterday's Men", "Time", and
"Coldest Day" manage to redeem things somewhat, and the title track -
"dance over Big Ben/seven ragged men/what are we but our friends" -
transcends the production and ends up unexpectedly elegaic.
24. (Waiting for the) Ghost Train
No comment necessary.
| Song: An ominous anti-apartheid protest song on which Mike
Barson, no less, returned to help out. Tinny-sounding, with some
mechanical Ivor the Engine backing, it's almost a success;
better production could have made more of it. A rather inconclusive
finish, at least until the reunion in 1992.
B-side: "Maybe in Another Life", a delicate little song which
survives the production's attempts to throttle it and manages in parts
to be quite touching. A suitably elgaic way to finish a putative
B-sides collection.
Intro: A head falls out of a plane intoning the title, Suggs
poses on the Underground intoning the title, and the "MAD 1" testcard
appears again.
Video: The third disappointment from Virgin's bigger budgets,
and another procession of unrelated and incoherent ideas, not helped
by the fact that some of the band were pushing thirty at the time;
what, exactly, is the point of the parachutist, for example? The
newspaper-effect suits decorated with the word "Soweto" don't really
make the song's point any clearer, either. But at least we get to see
the Nutty Train one last time, and there are plenty of references to
earlier videos (e.g. "Cairo East") for trainspotters to spot.
Best bit: The hats. See if you can match them to their
respective videos.
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