Madness - From Nutty to Nothing

Originally edgy and comic, Madness as a pop product descended into a parody of themselves with silly tunes and playing the game to the media game to the full.

Various incarnations led to the eventual formation of Madness in 1978. They released their first single on the famous Two-tone label in September 1979. A double A sided single the main track was The Prince - a tribute to legendary Ska pioneer Prince Buster with the eponymous track Madness as the flipside.

The sound was considered original at the time and thanks to a ska revival in post-punk Britain the subsequent album One Step Beyond sold well and stayed in the UK Album charts for over a year. Classic songs included the bitter sweet My Girl, the stirring instrumentals Night Boat To Cairo and One Step Beyond but also included darker songs such as Bed and Breakfast Man and Razor Blade Alley. Showing their 'Nuttier' side, the album's second side began with the jokey In The Middle Of The Night , a song about an underwear thief.

They followed it up the following year with the weaker Absolutely though the album started off with two of their strongest songs - Baggy Trousers and Embarrassment. The former encapsulated a mood of the time and the feelings of being a schoolboy at the time. The latter about somebody having committed some sort of family indiscretion - though what it is is not mentioned in the track.

Prolific (or greedy) they released another even weaker album the next year - Shut Up and Grey Day were stand out tunes but the rest was pretty poor stuff. Between 1982 and 1986, the band seemed to release singles at every opportunity though the only highlights were "Wings of a Dove," "Our House," "Michael Caine" and "House Of Fun".

Madness mobile content by SMS, Subscription or Credit Card is available on this site.

Free Madness real tones are real music ringtones as sung by Madness - no imitations. It's the real thing!

All the Madness ringtones, real tones and True Tones

If there is a Madness ringtone you would like that is not listed from a search please let us and know and we will try are best to create it for you.