Audio CD review:
Madness - Complete Madness

Madness - Complete Madness

Band: Madness Title: Complete Madness Rating: Release Date: 14 July, 2003 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Embarrassment 2: Shut Up 3: My Girl 4: Baggy Trousers 5: It Must Be Love 6: Prince 7: Bed and Breakfast Man 8: Night Boat to Cairo 9: House of Fun 10: One Step Beyond 11: Cardiac Arrest 12: Grey Day 13: Take It or Leave It 14: In the City 15: Madness 16: Return of the los Palmas 7

Customer Reviews Madness for those on the go... They do, however, require a bit of forethought. Road trips are wonderful things. If you could take only one tape with you (anyone remember cassettes?), this would be the one to have on those extended drives. Upon its release, Complete Madness was the band's capping acheivement, a brilliant compilation put out before the phenomenal success of 'Our House. ' It contains the wonderful 'It Must be Love,' the hard to find, 'House of Fun,' and the rarer still 'In the City,' a song featured in a Japanese car commecial circa early eighties. Nutty pleasure to the extreme. Enjoy. The complete EARLY Madness They had lots more hits later that decade and there are more comprehensive hits collections available. The Complete EARLY Madness would be a more suitable title, since this album covers their late 70s and early 80s period only. But this one captures them when their music was still fresh and innovative - the ska period proper. Always the least serious of all the Two Tone bands, Madness were clearly in it for the fun as their happy, bouncy music demonstrates. The Prince, their tribute to Ska legend Prince Buster, and their theme song Madness, have propulsive rhythms and there's catchy hooks aplenty throughout the album. My favourites include Night Boat To Cairo, One Step Beyond and Return Of The Las Palmas 7. They never established themselves in the USA but did have one major and one minor hit there. Together with their Two Tone stable mates The Special, The Selecter and The (English) Beat, Madness made rock history and their best work remains delightful today. . You can see a complete list of all Madness discography, or go back to the Madness tabs