A steady decline of sales, the departure of Mike Barson, the struggles of starting their own label, burnout, and disagreements on musical directions were all factoring in by 1985. The once unified Madness was crumbling on multiple fronts, and this would all culminate in Mad Not Mad being the bands final album for over a decade.
Upon its release, Mad Not Mad was met with little critical fanfare, being panned for it heavy reliance on slow contemporary pop songs. Lead singer, Graham McPherson would be later quoted as calling the album a well polished turd. It's the only album to be released on the band's self created label, Zarjazz.
Their first single, Yesterday's Men would chart in the UK, and peak at number eighteen. However, the follow-up singles, Uncle Sam, and Sweetest Girl would fail to crack the top twenty, which was a first for the band. However, this didn't stop the album from peaking, as a whole, at number sixteen on the UK charts.
I definitely noticed the slower pace of some of the tracks, but I don't know that I would go so far as to say it was driven by this new musical direction. I will say that's it continues the trend of more pop than ska.
What I will say is that it all quickly turned into forgettable background noise rather quickly. I vaguely remember the tunes, I'll Complete, Uncle Sam, and Mad Not Mad (the song).
When it was all said and done, I had kind of had my fill of Madness. This could partly be because of my newer way of doing these posts. Wherein the past I would do a spin, move on to someone else, and so on and so on, the current format is more so focused on a block style, going through a chunk of music from the same artist, if not all of it from the 80's. While it's certainly more convenient for putting together a coherent history of the artists, I've noticed more times than not that this leads to a bit of burnout for me by the time it's all done.
I may need to break things up a bit in the future, or possibly go back to being more sporadic, which is unfortunate, because I like the format of a flowing timeline, but if it's leading to me not enjoying what I'm hearing, what good is that? Alternatively, and perhaps this is just speculation on my part, maybe what I'm experiencing is what the bands and artists themselves are going through. Their slow beginnings, finding their sound and peak, and ultimate decline, and sometimes break up. That's an interesting perspective to look at it from.
For example, Madness attempted to record a follow-up album, and even completed eleven demos. However, too many musical differences conflicted the members from working together. The album was shelved, and the band opted to go their separate ways. Prior to doing so, Mike Barson would rejoin them to record and release one final single, (Waiting For) The Ghost Train. After its release, the band announced their official disbandment. They formally dissolved their Zarjazz label shortly thereafter in 1986.
There was a second iteration of the group in 1988 as The Madness, which featured some of the prior members. However, their one and only album performed poorly, leading them to disband again after its release.
In the mid 90's all seven members reunited, and since then, though members have come and gone, most of their studio albums have consisted of the entire core. It's only as of 2024 that Cathal Smyth has stated he has no interest in performing with the group anymore. Despite this, Madness continues on as a six piece, with their latest studio album being 2023's Theatre Of The Absurd Presents C'est La Vie.
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS November 14, 1981 |
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS November 14, 1987 |
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