It would have been September 1979, working behind the bar of the Station Hotel in Sheffield, on a quiet Thursday evening, that I popped the pub TV on to Top Of The Pops (only in the snug - the locals in the main bar weren’t into this modern stuff) and there’s this new band Madness, with their new song The Prince, bouncing round, having fun and enjoying themselves!
It all seemed so new and exciting, and little did I know that I was seeing the birth of a National Treasure. This album was one of the many which seemed to soundtrack that year, so it’s interesting to listen to it for the first time in a while.
The singles have been played to death over the past 40 years, but two things grab me
1 - the standard of the musicianship. These guys had worked hard to get to this stage.
2 - just how good the songs are, the lesser played non singles just as much as the better known stuff. Land of Hope and Glory, In The Middle of the Night, Razor Blade Alley, even the slightly dubious Mummy’s Boy. And their version of Prince Buster’s Madness is just sublime!
4* - a superb album, the quality of which I’m not sure they ever matched.
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