''Madstock!'' is the first

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th centur ...

ska Ska (; , ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a w ...

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop! (British group), a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Album ...

band

Madness Madness or The Madness may refer to: Emotion and mental health * Anger, an intense emotional response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat * Insanity, a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns * ...

, released on 2 November 1992 (see

1992 in music This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1992. Specific locations *1992 in British music *1992 in Norwegian music *1992 in South Korean music Specific genres *1992 in country music *1992 in heavy metal music *1992 ...

) by

Go! Discs Go! Discs was a London-based record label, launched in 1983 from offices in Wendell Road, Shepherd's Bush, by Andy Macdonald and Lesley Symons. The pair founded the label after Macdonald left his job as press officer at Stiff Records, and Sy ...

. The album includes highlights from Madness' first concerts since their disbanding in 1986, on 8 and 9 August 1992 at

Finsbury Park Finsbury Park is a public park in Harringay, north London, England. The park lies on the southern-most edge of the London Borough of Haringey. It is in the area formerly covered by the historic parish of Hornsey, succeeded by the Municipal ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. The bill included

Flowered Up Flowered Up were an English indie pop-alternative dance band, formed in Camden Town, London, in 1989, active during the baggy movement. Their 13-minute single " Weekender" reached the UK top 20. The band split up in 1994 amid drug problems. ...

Gallon Drunk Gallon Drunk were an English alternative rock band formed in London in 1988. Their sound contains a variety of influences, from noise to blues and jazz, and is noted for its dark subject matter. Biography The band formed in 1988 with an init ...

Ian Dury and The Blockheads Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, which is derived from the Hebrew given name (Yohanan, ') and corresponds to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. This name is a popu ...

Morrissey Steven Patrick Morrissey ( ; born 22 May 1959), known :wikt:mononym, mononymously as Morrissey, is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 198 ...

and

. The full concert was released on a corresponding video. Both the album and video are now out of print. However, a

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

of the concert is available in the box set ''

A Guided Tour of Madness ''A Guided Tour of Madness'' is a 3-CD/1-DVD anthology box set by English band Madness, released in 2011 on Union Square Music's collector's label Salvo. It features 70 singles and album tracks (from 1979’s '' One Step Beyond...'' to 2009’s ...

''. The concert briefly spawned a series of biennial Madstock events (the name sometimes rendered with no exclamation mark) in 1994, 1996, and 1998 (this last Madstock is available on DVD). In December 2008 the band announced that they would be staging a 5th Madstock concert in 2009 to celebrate their 30th anniversary held on 17 July in

Victoria Park, East London Victoria Park (known colloquially as Vicky Park or the People's Park) is a park in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London, England. It is the largest park in Tower Hamlets and one of London's most visited green spaces with approxima ...

. The album reached #22 in the UK album charts. "

The Harder They Come ''The Harder They Come'' is a 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell and co-written by Trevor D. Rhone, and starring Jimmy Cliff. The film is most famous for its reggae soundtrack that is said to have "brought reggae to the world ...

", a cover of the

Jimmy Cliff James Chambers, Jamaican Order of Merit, OM (born 30 July 1944), known professionally as Jimmy Cliff, is a Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and soul musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and actor. He is the only living reggae musician to hol ...

song, was released as the only single off this album and reached #44 in the UK charts. On 9 October 2015, Salvo reissued the album and video as a 1-CD/1-DVD set with four CD bonus tracks.

Production and album cover

;Production ''Madstock!'' was recorded on 8 and 9 August 1992 using the Fleetwood Mobile recording studio, and then produced and mixed by

Clive Langer Clive Langer (born 19 June 1954) is an English record producer and songwriter, active from the mid-1970s onwards. He usually works with Alan Winstanley. He composed the music for the films '' Still Crazy'' and '' Brothers of the Head''. Biog ...

and

Alan Winstanley Alan Kenneth Winstanley (; born 2 November 1952) is an English record producer and songwriter, active from the mid-1970s onwards. He usually works with Clive Langer. Early life He was born in Fulham in November 1952 to parents Ken and Doreen. ...

at their Westside Studios in London. Seven tracks were chosen from day one and eleven from day two. ;Album cover The cover photographs were taken by

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

photographer

Jill Furmanovsky Jill Furmanovsky (born 1953) is a British photographer who has specialised in documenting rock musicians. Life and work Born in Southern Rhodesia, Furmanovsky emigrated with her parents - her father subsequently worked at an architecture prac ...

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, where Madness were playing a warm-up gig for Madstock on 6 August. Wanting to create an action shot, Furmanovsky had the band jump on a beach trampoline and later collaged the individual shots together on a computer.

Critical reception

Simon Tucker of the

Louder Than War ''Louder Than War'' is a music and culture website and magazine focusing on mainly alternative arts news, reviews, and features. The site is an editorially independent publication that was started by the English musician and journalist John R ...

website called the album "musically tight with not a duff note," saying, "This album is a joy, an example of a band not understanding how influential they are or how loved until one magic moment brings it home for them." ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who, Dave Schulps, and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

'' wrote, "the band sounds tight and in top form; the sing-along enthusiasm of the crowd makes the disc particularly infectious."

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

's Evan Cater was less positive, saying, "

Suggs Graham McPherson (born 13 January 1961), known primarily by his stage name Suggs, is a British singer-songwriter, musician, radio personality and actor. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the ska band Madness, which ...

' decision to sacrifice vocal quality for exuberance is more excusable than the unimaginative arrangements of the songs, which vary little from the original studio recordings. Moreover, the singles-heavy song selection ... is a little boring for serious fans." Commenting on the 2015 reissue, Charles Hutchinson of ''

The Press ''The Press'' () is a daily newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand, owned by media business Stuff (company), Stuff Ltd. First published in 1861, the newspaper is the largest circulating daily in the South Island and publishes Monday t ...

'' was disappointed that Salvo's CD and DVD package did not match the occasion: "The running order is jettisoned on the CD, with four numbers consigned to bin ends, while the DVD needed to be more of a documentary." Russell Deeks of ''Songwriting'' magazine wrote, "They may have been a little bit rough around the edges in places on the day ... but their knockabout humour and unrivaled sense of showmanship were definitely " Deeks noted that the video quality of the DVD isn't the best, as it has apparently been transferred over from the original

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

release.

Track listing

2015 reissue

;Disc 1 The first disc contains the eighteen tracks from the original album plus four bonus tracks.
Bonus track 20 is previously unreleased on CD; tracks 19, 21 and 22 have appeared on the single "The Harder They Come". ;Disc 2

Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. ;Madness * Graham "Suggs" McPherson –

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

Mike Barson Michael Barson (born 21 April 1958) is a British multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and composer. In a career spanning 45 years, Barson came to prominence in the late 1970s as the keyboard player for the band Madness. Early years Barson wa ...

– keyboards * Lee Thompson –

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

, vocals *

Chris Foreman Christopher John Foreman (born 8 August 1956), nicknamed Chrissy Boy, is an English musician, songwriter, and composer. In a career spanning 45 years, Foreman came to prominence in the late 1970s as the guitarist for the English band Madness. ...

–

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

Mark Bedford Mark William Bedford (born 24 August 1961),Strong, Martin C. (2002) ''The Great Rock Discography'', Canongate, , p. 638 nicknamed Bedders, is an English musician, songwriter and composer. Bedford came to prominence in the late 1970s as the bass ...

–

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

Daniel Woodgate Daniel Mark "Woody" Woodgate (born 19 October 1960) is an English musician, songwriter, composer and record producer. In a career spanning 45 years, Woodgate came to prominence in the late 1970s as the drummer for the English ska band Madness a ...

–

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

Cathal Smyth Cathal Joseph "Carl" Smyth (born 14 January 1959), also known as Chas Smash, is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was the secondary vocalist, trumpet player and dancer for the English band Madness from their inception ...

– vocals,

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

;Technical *

– producer, mixing *

– producer, mixing, DVD audio mixing * Paul Mortimer – engineer (Westside Studios) * Andy Rose – engineer (Fleetwood Mobile) * Peter Jones – engineer (Fleetwood Mobile) * Ian Bridges – assistant engineer (Fleetwood Mobile) *

– art direction, photography * Ryan Art – design * William Smith – liner notes * Estuary English – art direction (2015 reissue) * Piers Allardyce – photography (2015 reissue) * Ian Gittins – liner notes (2015 reissue) ;DVD * Gavin Taylor – film director * Dione Orram – producer * Rocky Oldham – producer * Juliet De Valero-Wills – executive producer * Malcolm Gerrie – executive producer * Meedja –

DVD authoring DVD authoring is the process of creating a DVD video capable of playing on a DVD player. DVD authoring software must conform to the specifications set by the DVD Forum. DVD authoring is the second step in the process of producing finished D ...

Chart performance

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1992 live albums Madness (band) live albums Madness (band) video albums Albums produced by Clive Langer Albums produced by Alan Winstanley Go! Discs live albums