Madness
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Madness: The Italian Nutty Brigade
Report and Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 25 October 1980
All aboard the trans-Europe express as Madness go from Rome to Amsterdam, by Paolo Hewitt ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Gavin Martin, Rock's Backpages audio, 20 December 2002
Chas Smash, joined by Suggs and Mike Barson, looks back at Madness then and now, Our House the Musical, reunions (theirs and others'), Buddhism, domesticity, and not doing Live Aid!
File format: mp3 File size: 42mb Interview length: 45' 50"; Sound quality: ****
List of articles in the library
Madness: Dublin Castle, London
Live Review by Mark Williams, Melody Maker, 13 June 1979
THE NAME says it all. ...
Madness: Moonlight Club, London
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 14 July 1979
TOO 'OT, MUCH TOO HOT... Prince Buster had it sussed yonks ago. Tuesday night down the Moonlight and people are evaporating just standing still. Feverishly ...
The Specials, Madness, The Selecter: Electric Ballroom, London
Live Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 4 August 1979
In the heat of the night ...
2-Tone: Ska Authentic And More.
Report by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 6 October 1979
GARRY BUSHELL CHECKS OUT 2-TONE ...
Madness: One Step Beyond (Stiff)
Review by Deanne Pearson, New Musical Express, 27 October 1979
Blue Feat ...
Madness: Blue Beat and Pork Pies
Report and Interview by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 24 November 1979
Not so much New Boots and Panties, more a case of...Blue Beat and Pork Pies. Britain in the grip of Madness. Report by Garry Bushell. ...
Madness: Nice Band, Shame About The Fans
Report and Interview by Deanne Pearson, New Musical Express, 24 November 1979
Deanne Pearson puts the cat among the pigeons and scotches some nasty rumours. ...
Profile and Interview by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 29 November 1979
Dr. Hepworth dons a white coat and investigates... ...
Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 15 December 1979
DOWN AT Acquarius Records an assistant keeps rushing out to put out more copies of 'One Step Beyond'. He's kept pretty busy. They're being bought ...
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 22 December 1979
THERE'S NO tradition of ska being popular in America. Millie Small and Desmond Dekker each had one novelty hit a piece, and that's it. But ...
Interview by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 2 February 1980
GARRY BUSHELL takes advantage of a brand new page logo to talk technical turkey with LEE 'KIX' THOMPSON and discovers that madness is a Selmer ...
Madness: When The Screaming Had To Start
Report and Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 23 February 1980
"'ERE, SUGGSY...'Ere, Suggs." ...
Madness: One Step Beyond (Sire Records 0085)
Review by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 February 1980
The Nutty Sound ...
Report and Interview by Mark Williams, Melody Maker, 15 March 1980
Today the UK. Tomorrow the USA? Next week, the world? Are Madness about to get everybody up and dancing again? MARK WILLIAMS sits down and ...
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 16 March 1980
ROCK MUSIC'S vitality depends on a constant influx of new sounds. Just when American audiences are catching on to the three-year-old British punk/new-wave movement, a ...
Madness: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 5 April 1980
Prince Buster cracks LA at last ...
Madness: The Importance of Being Nutty
Interview by Mike Stand, Smash Hits, 17 April 1980
Mike Stand diagnoses Madness ... ...
Madness: The Mad Hatter's TV Party
Report and Interview by Danny Baker, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980
THE TV PARTY ...
Review by Tony Fletcher, The Face, November 1980
PUT SIMPLY, Absolutely takes the sound Madness carved out for themselves on One Step Beyond, forsakes cover versions, and perfects the technique. And if your ...
Profile by Garry Bushell, Dance Craze, 1981
I WAS STUCK on a five hour train journey from Glasgow to London in the summer of '79 with no buffet and with only the ...
Profile and Interview by Chris Salewicz, The Face, January 1981
ON A MONDAY morning so dark from thundery rainclouds it seems as though the sky has fallen in, Graham 'Suggs' McPherson, shoe-less and wearing only ...
The Specials: More Specials (Chrysalis CHRS1303); Madness: Absolutely (Sire SRK6094)
Review by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, January 1981
THE MUSICAL trend of the year in Britain, a nation which obviously relishes its fads, was the emergence of the neo-ska bands. Buoyed by a ...
Madness: The Return of the Mad-nificent 7
Report and Interview by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 5 February 1981
Davy, Dav-ee Hepworth (King Of The Wild Frontier) watches Madness ride off into the sunset. ...
Interview by Peter Silverton, Smash Hits, 15 October 1981
FRIDAY afternoon. The Smash Hits works outing pay a visit to the movies. They munch popcorn, they suck their sweet orange drinks and watch a ...
A Brief Case History Of Madness
Book Excerpt by Mark Williams, Proteus Books, 1982
Their condition as carriers of a fast reggae hybrid, ska, was first diagnosed in 1979. This nutty sound was then transmitted to an increasingly larger ...
Report and Interview by Johnny Black, Smash Hits, 21 January 1982
The rise and rise of the pop video has brought mini-movies into every living room; Adam in panto, The Human League in detective thrillers, Barry ...
Review by Iman Lababedi, Creem, February 1982
I SUPPOSE that the proof that Madness have handled the precarious business of being a teeny-bopper band with a measurable degree of humor, aplomb and ...
Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 24 April 1982
(LOVELY!) ALTHOUGH people are snobby about just about everything except disease, I can think of no one who is snobby about the great and not ...
Profile and Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, December 1983
THE TRANSATLANTIC telephone line is dominated by the muffled distortion and hiss common to calls made across a thousand leagues of water; the voice at ...
Madness: Adventures in Madonia
Report and Interview by Paolo Hewitt, New Musical Express, 21 January 1984
With Mike Barson' departure from Madness are Camden's finest now fast approaching the pop parody stakes? or will a three day trip to Poland, fighting ...
Interview by Max Bell, No. 1, February 1984
IT'S FIVE years and 18 hit singles since Madness first ran riot on Top of the Pops and straight into the nation's hearts. ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 February 1984
I'M TOLD Madness are in decline, and for someone who found 'Grey Day' and 'House Of Fun, to be the only tracks he wanted to ...
Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, July 1984
MADNESS WARNED us as long ago as 1979 that they intended to "move with the times" as new pop fashions scudded across that fickle London ...
Interview by Neil Tennant, Smash Hits, 1985
MADNESS ARE PLANNING A TV SERIES. THEY'RE STARTING A RECORD LABEL. THEY EVEN WEAR HAND-MADE SOCKS THESE DAYS. IT'S CALLED "BROADENING ONE'S OUTLOOK". WELL, THAT'S ...
Chris Ruocco: A Stitch In Times
Interview by Deanne Pearson, No. 1, 2 March 1985
Chris Ruocco makes the striking stage outfits of many of today's top pop stars. Deanne Pearson talks to the tailor whose creations turn up on ...
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 10 August 1985
No longer just Nutty Boys, MADNESS have grown into troubled and doubting pop commentators on the English way of life. DON WATSON traces the Four ...
Interview by Max Bell, No. 1, 2 November 1985
It's just over six years since those young nutty boys hit the Top 20 with 'The Prince'. Now Madness have just notched up their 21st ...
Madness: Suggs on Women, Romance, Sexism and Growing Up
Interview by Max Bell, No. 1, 1986
CAN MEN be feminists? ...
The End of 2-Tone: Madness/The Specials/The Selecter
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1986
Farewell, Madness – the last of the 2-Tone tribe. Phil Sutcliffe follows the fate of the three groups that pioneered the ska revival. ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 29 November 1986
IT WAS almost as if they were trying too hard to convince themselves. With all the zip his curiously glum voice could muster, Suggs sings, ...
Essay by Mark Sinker, New Musical Express, 2 January 1988
"Oh, grassy dale and lowland scene/Come see, come hear the English Scheme!" (The Fall)"You might sleep, but you will never dream/Oh, Manchester! So much to ...
Interview by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 5 March 1988
Madness are dead! Long live THE MADNESS. Without Woody and Bedders and Barson's ghost, the Mad Four – Suggs, Carl, Chris and Lee – charge ...
Live Review by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, 15 August 1992
THE TEE-SHIRT READS "Madstock"; the reality sporadically veers from such cheery celebration. Somewhere in the fun and the frolics, the grubbiness of moronicism smears the ...
Overview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 22 May 1993
From The Kinks to Carter, Bowie to Blur, the Small Faces to Suede, British pop groups have eulogised, mythologised, criticised, glamorised, immortalised, romanticised and agonised ...
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, January 1994
I FIRST SAW MADNESS EARLY IN 1980 IN A SAN Francisco club. It was the city's mecca of punk but the locals didn't know quite ...
Madness: Naughty Boys In Nasty Schools
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Later, September 1999
NAUGHTY BOYS IN NASTY SCHOOLS ...
Madness: The Making Of 'Our House'
Retrospective and Interview by Gavin Martin, Uncut, April 2007
The Nutty Boys nailed their "English Motown" sound on this infectious classic — one of the lasting monuments of '80s pop. Suggs and the band ...
Madness: Nutty Boys talk turkey
Report and Interview by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 30 November 2007
THREE MEMBERS OF Nutty Boy legends Madness are in the basement of their favourite North London boozer, The Constitution. Singer Suggs, guitarist Chris Foreman and ...
Retrospective and Interview by Jon Wilde, Mail On Sunday, Spring 2007
"THIRTY YEARS of getting away with it," is how vocalist Suggs describes the pop career of Madness. "Thirty years of good-hearted mischief and a little ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, Uncut, March 2008
2008 WILL SEE Madness' first album of new material for nine years. The Liberty Of Newton Folgate is a concept LP of sorts, inspired by ...
Madness : One Step Beyond... (30th Anniversary Edition)
Review by Stevie Chick, bbc.co.uk, 2009
The vaudevillian nuttiness of their debut set hasn't diminished over the decades. ...
Madness: The Liberty Of Norton Folgate
Review by David Quantick, Uncut, June 2009
AS THE SPECIALS reunion — reunion, my copious arse — gets more publicity, one can only hope that this far more interesting 2-Tone-related event will ...
Madness: Suggs on 30 years as music's most dysfunctional family
Interview by Sheryl Garratt, Daily Telegraph, 22 October 2012
How do seven men who can barely be in the same room together remain one of the most enduring groups British music has ever known? ...
An exclusive interview with Madness to mark 40 years of Absolutely
Retrospective and Interview by Stevie Chick, GQ, 24 December 2020
To mark the 40th anniversary of Madness' sophomore album, Absolutely, Stevie Chick spoke to Chris Foreman and Lee Thompson, who recall their experiences during the ...
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