MADNESS – "House Of Fun"

That line never struck me as particularly awkward. I prefer this to ‘Embarrassment’ too – never seemed to enjoy that one as much as I perhaps ought to have. I think they’re still up there among the acts with longest run of ‘any good at all’ singles (altho often seeming greater than the sum of their parts and if extracted from the general appeal of Madness as a b(r)and and their superb image, lessened in impact).

Rather than the actual video i always remember the performance of this on The Young Ones first and foremost (and the “You hum it…I’ll smash yer face in” from not particularly convincing hardman Suggs re ‘Summer Holiday’). Like the Human League, Kraftwerk and others, great that they at least got the one chart-topper.

I think “Pop art melancholy” utterly nails it if we’re discussing material like 1983’s The Sun And The Rain or ’84’s sublime Michael Caine, both of which are a universe away from this daft, geezerish knees-up – and, indeed, Suggs’ solo material. I think Madness are the true Beatles of the ’80s – there’s a gorgeous, wistful London heart buried beneath the chirpy public image. One of England’s finest, frankly. And new single NW5 is magnificent, a perfect resurrection of their sweeter, music hall-indebted side.

Goodness, as a young lad of 7 I had no inkling at all that this was about buying condoms, or indeed anything other than Having Generic Fun. It seems so blatant now.

The line you cite is a bit of a clunker to be sure, but it seems mad to suggest that it’s the point at which the lyrics connoisseur must throw the song aside in disgust…!

I liked this a lot at the time – so I’m sad that it sounds less engaging now – like an old friend with whom you realise you have less and less in common.
Despite the jaunty tune and the clowning evidenced on the picture disc there seems to be an air of passivity and conservatism which is more than a little depressing.
The attitude to the subject matter reflects a fear of sexuality that seemed to typify the Two-Tone bands -cf Too Much Too Young -> The Boiler – which is at odds with the libidinal impulse of the original ska toons and most pop music.

I’ve been reaching for a phrase to conjure late period Madness and the best I can do is ‘autumnal vaudeville’.

I do remember that around the time of The Sun And The Rain there was serious talk of a Monkees-styled TV show. I’m glad it didn’t happen – I think it would have enshrined them as the self-conscious japesters the public had already pegged them as. What’s interesting when you watch things like the TOTP studio performance of Driving In My Car is how close it comes to desperate, tax-office-workers-goon-for-Comic-Relief style twittery: You don’t have to be Madness to work here, but it helps.

One thing that Madness’s success around this time really brings home is that it was a more forgiving climate in which to make pop music – especially pop music that had some sort of element of jocularity about it. People – well, critics mainly – can get make sweeping generalisations about the state of an artist’s career on the basis of whatever the current single happens to be. That sometimes transmits to the record-buying public, which in turn results in a sort of jitteriness among artists. The ultimate consequence of this is a more conservative approach from people who make records. You don’t want to release something that sounds too “out of character”.

What I think we’ve lost in the wake of bands like Madness is people who bang this stuff out – essentially treat singles like postcards to their fans to tell them what they’re up to. There was a time when music fans – without necessarily articulating this to themselves – knew that. So what if Driving In My Car or Cardiac Arrest weren’t up to scratch? They were continuing the dialogue, and you knew that just around the corner there might be an Our House or The Sun And The Rain. If Lily Allen released her equivalent of a Driving In My Car, people would be far more judgmental. When a certain band put out a not-unMadnessy number one single out in the mid-90s (with video to match) it helped precipitate a huge backlash. I don’t mean to say it’s ok to make bad records, but it’s in a less anxious atmosphere that some of the really brilliant (and more daring) records are made.

That said, it’s a shame that it was House of Fun rather than Our House that remains Madness’s sole chart topper. For me that was the one where they absolutely aced the nuttiness:red-brick melancholia ratio to perfection. Their Penny Lane. Nice to see them on the cover of Uncut this month.

Some interesting perspectives here, far from unanimous, including one or two who didn’t go in for Madness’s later, more serious takes on the world. It’s like they’re the Woody Allen of pop, with the fan saying “I really like your movies, especially the earlier funny ones” (Stardust Memories).

I’d fallen out with Madness earlier in the year over their previous single – and I don’t seem to be alone in this, as it was their smallest hit in their most successful period and the one that was left out of “Complete Madness”. I hear what they say about it being social commentary and an observation on the rat race; but to be honest, when a song called “Cardiac Arrest” enters the chart the day after your father dies of a heart attack, you’re going to struggle to like it.

But all was forgiven with this one, one of my favourites of the decade. When the video was on TOTP in our college TV room, those who hadn’t heard the song before fell about laughing at the line “box of balloons with a Fetherlite touch” – at the gag itself and the audacity of getting a brand name of condoms onto the BBC. For me it absolutely is fun, a joy from first to last – a situation anybody who’s ever been a 16-year-old boy can identify with. I can understand your not getting it at the time Tom! Incidentally I don’t think the chemist misunderstands him, more likely she’s seen this kind of thing before and finds the Jack-the-lad routine sweet but tiresome.

Someone once said of Madness that they were quintessentially English in that only an English band’s influences could encompass music hall, Jamaican ska, the Kinks, Monty Python and Mr Pastry – and you can listen to their greatest hits one after another and hear the darker side coming through. It was always there in some of their subject matter, but songs like “One Better Day”, my favourite among their later singles, show what a range they were capable of.

“House of Fun”’s second week at number one featured a contender for the all-time greatest top five. This at 1, its successor at 2 (neither drinking nor smoking), Soft Cell’s exquisite “Torch” up from 16 to 3, Yazoo’s “Only You” down at 4 and ABC’s “Look Of Love” climbing to 5. If you think the early 80s was a mini-Golden Age of pop, this is Exhibit A.

Does anybody else remember that Bob Monkhouse routine about going into a chemists every day as a boy, and being too scared to ask for condoms from the female assistant, and buying a comb every day for two years? He seemed to tell it on one or other television appearance several times a year, for about twenty years.

I had no idea this awful band were this well loved 🙁

I’ve never been a fan of the idea of musicals based on an act’s songs, but I did go and see “Our House” the Madness musical, and it wasn’t bad at all. Written by Tim Firth, who also wrote the much-missed CITV series “Rottentrolls”, which featured the voices of Martin Clunes, Ronni Ancona and John Thomson and was WASTED on kids…

i don’t buy the enforced jollity charge. i think they genuinely *are* good humoured and warm-hearted and this comes through in the records (and the videos too). it’s this warmth and straightforwardness that makes their melancholy songs so affecting – unlike blur or the kinks, they don’t do social commentary by being outsiders constructing characters (or caricatures) for the listener to identify and tick off, but by inhabiting characters and feeling their way into their emotions. actually, for all they are sometimes wonderfully straightforward (my girl’s mad at me) their lyrics, particularly on the ‘issues’ singles (who (carter apart!) ever had more? alcoholism, depression, workplace stress, interracial relationships, homelessness (at least a couple of times), northern ireland, south africa) are often brilliantly oblique – i’ve no idea what the narrative of ‘Michael caine’ or who the protagonist(s) is/are, but i know it’s really a song about fear and shame and regret.
for my money theirs is the greatest run of singles in all pop. unlike the You Know Who’s they stopped at the right time and even managed to pull of a couple of great comeback singles in the late nineties – ‘lovestruck’ in particular is gorgeous. house of fun not one of their best though, and ‘gorgon’s heard gossip’ is a bit of a stinker.

Erithian at 19 – Exhibit A. I believe Marcello rates this week’s Top 40 (29 May 1982) as the greatest in pop history!

It does contain some absolutely wonderful singles as well as the Top 5 you mention – Simple Minds, Pigbag, Associates, Patrice Rushen, Junior, Kid Creole & the Coconuts, PhD, Duran, Spandau, Japan, New Order, Kim Wilde, Tight Fit, Depeche Mode, Bananarama & FB3.

Just rewatched the video and it’s endearing how the small glitches are left in: at “that pop in the night”, Carl forgets to turn 90 degrees to the right with his trumpet, while Lee still dips. I guess this is somehow related to “people who bang this stuff out – essentially treat singles like postcards to their fans”.

The three Proper Chemists and their dance is close to terrifying!

7 seems about right to me. They had a lot of nines among their other singles though. For your information not asked for, “Mr Speaker (Gets the Word)” would be a ten, but was wisely not singled.

A fantastic pop record though not their best. I loved them at the time and still do. The bizarre Fairground Keyboard solo is almost macabre . There is much more to any Madness track than just some short novelty. Suggs isn’t the greatest singer in the world but when compared to the horrendous, half an octave ability, monotonous droning of Morrissey, he’s on a peak.

I’ll join the crowd and say this wasn’t my favourite Madness single, but I like the idea of its No.1ness being a Long Service Award (#12).

Mind you, it’s still pretty triffic innit and happily married in my head with the housewives bowling in and doing their ridiculous dance. Kills me every time.

I’ve got a strong personal attachment to Madness – the 1992 Divine Madness compilation was the first album I ever owned (on tape, for what it’s worth), a birthday present from my parents who remembered I’d liked listening to them as a very young child. Some time soon afterwards my brother got a VHS copy of the accompanying video collection, which only made me love the band even more (it probably also set me up with unreasonably high expectations for music videos in general but there you go). ‘House Of Fun’ was definitely one of my favourites in that respect (I thought the bit with the band in barbers’ chairs was hilarious) but looking back I’d have to agree that it’s not their best single. That said, the relentless energy and queasy fairground feel do elevate it above something like ‘Driving In My Car’. A 7/10, this one.

NMEWatch: 15 May 1982. Lynne Hannah made this a shared single of the week, alongside ‘Goody Two Shoes’ and ‘Cantonese Boy’ by Japan;

“Only Madness could manage this serio-comic tightrope trick, and although they don’t seem the types to come over all precious about a pop skill that time seems to be further refining, ‘House of Fun’ is excellent. Switchback twists and sleight-of-hand subtleties mark out the perfect scenario for an ’80s cartoon caper, and like all good clowning theirs is an act that contains an unstressed sterner element. The subject matter of this particular amusement arcade seems to be the difficulties in reaching the magical age of consent only to find the doors to adult pleasures remain still resolutely shut. All of which goes to prove once again that you don’t have to force a grim and grudging Social Realism on your listeners to create a personal and highly pertinent pop entertainment.”

K-Tel watch: opening track on Turbo Trax, followed by Tight Fit’s Fantasy Island, Shakatak’s Night Birds, Kim Wilde’s View From A Bridge, and Roxy Music’s More Than This. Quality.

#42 Mike Barson – strangely underrated genius of the band in my opinion. Watching “Take it or leave it” again after 20 years when it was given an airing on TV again last week, I was struck by how much it seemed to be his band – the keyboard sounds, the goading and cajoling the others to take it all more seriously .. (to Lee Thomson ” Your playing it wrong again Lee. Why dont you bring the book anymore? You seem to fink you can play the fing now”, leading to another “walkout” by Thomson)…and yet, its Suggs whom everyone knows and remembers. Oddly, one of the worst lead singers of any of my favourite bands.

House of Fun – not one of their best – not even close. My all time favourite Madness record is “The Prince”, which pumps along and gets under your skin…. but with hindsight I really could do without Nightboat to Cairo, or Our House…..

Madness – I luv em, but they were a seriously flawed group. Dodgy awkward singer, and various pastiche songs that really have no place on an album.. But as the last poster says, when Barson (usually) cracks the whip, they were terrific.

Kinda surprised no one’s mentioned the piece of trivia I associate with this.

One-thousand-nine-hundred-and-eighty-two years after Christianity got started, and for the first (and as yet, only) time in history a reigning Pope deigns to visit England … and, to welcome him when he arrives, a song about contraceptives tops the chart.

I mean, it’s not like there’s a huge lineage of songs about contraceptives getting to number one — it was almost as much of a singularity as the Pope’s visit. The synchronicity almost defies belief.

(So maybe it’s proof that there is a god, to arrange things with such perfect serendipity?)

(But if that was the case, who exactly was he trying to give a message to?)

MIKEMCSG @42

‘House Of Fun’ has a Thompson (Lyrics)/Barson (Music) credit.

re. Mike Barson their only good songwriter.

Chris Foreman wrote the music for ‘Baggy Trousers’ (Lyrics – Suggs), ‘Shut Up’ (Lyrics – Suggs), ‘Cardiac Arrest’ (Lyrics – Carl) and ‘Our House’ (Lyrics – Carl).

Have to admit I’m genuinely surprised that “House of Fun” got such a mixed reception here. I’ve always considered it one of my favourite Madness songs.

Monotonous chorus? Aside from the fact it’s great(!), it’s too short for that. It’s even shorter- and comes with a nice key change- the second time around. And the song itself is comfortably under three minutes, doesn’t even have time to get boring before the fadeout!

It’s got a great little middle eight that diverts things via the scenic route and returns at exactly the right point as it should.

Agree with Pink Champale (#27); I’m really *not* a fan of forced or overbearing jollity, and this isn’t. IMHO, that accusation (Lex, #4) would be better levelled at “Driving in my Car”, too self-consciously trying to be funny and relying on this- and its intentional naffness- for its appeal. In other words, it’s essentially a novelty/comedy record. However, it’s the exception rather than the rule- most of Madness’ “fun” singles work because underneath that, they’re still great tunes, and any sense of fun comes naturally, often being mixed with other elements to give them more depth and interest than they’re often credited for.

(And yes, Suggs’ mid-90s solo career is almost universally considered to be… not great. Not sure the band as a whole should be tarred with that brush, though(!))

Interestingly, the version of ‘House of Fun’ on Divine Madness- which many of us might be familiar with- apparently isn’t the single release, but the album version. (The difference is that the original single ends suddenly in a cacophony of fairground music.)

SteveM, #26; Re: the Honda City advert. They did a full version of this as “In The City”, which was the B-side to Cardiac Arrest. You can buy it as an MP3 (they included it as a bonus track on the ‘7’ album reissue).