Madness - Keep Moving (1984)
Album Project update! Realised I never finished posting about Madness albums, and since they've released a new one I thought I should get on with it! 'Keep Moving' (1984) was their fifth studio album. If 'The Rise & Fall' was a bit more experimental, this is a bit more polished, less ska, more mainstream perhaps. The only song on it you're likely to have heard is 'Michael Caine'. But that's actually a song I'm not so keen on, I've never figured out why. I like 'Victoria Gardens' a lot, for equally unknown reasons. The album has a song on it about a boy who hides in a fridge and gets trapped. It's the last album to feature Mike Barson until their 1999 comeback album - he wasn't part of the lineup for 'Mad Not Mad'. Hmm... I'm pretty much out of facts now. :) Though I like the enthusiasm of their earlier albums, this is probably one of the albums I've listened to more. They're much more grown up. Much more accomplished in what they're doing. But not quite as much fun...
Labels: 1984, Album Project, Keep Moving, Madness
Album Project Update! 'Tonight' (1984) and 'Never Let Me Down' (1987). I am grouping these together because they're both scarily 80s. I'm not sure I like them a lot. It's quite heavily produced, synths, etc... just doesn't sound very real. 'Tonight' is memorable to me for 'God Only Knows', which you will probably recognise as a cover. The weird thing is, it sounds like someone doing a really mad David Bowie impression. It's almost laughable! Very odd. 'Never Let Me Down' seems somehow less daft, and has a bit of the old Bowie craziness in the form of 'Glass Spider'. I don't think you'd recognise any of the songs on these albums, though. Probably not a Bowie high point...
Labels: 1984, 1987, Album Project, David Bowie, Never Let Me Down, Tonight
Album Project update! Have now listened to 'Word of Mouth' (1984). (BTW, you may be pleased to hear that 'Think Visual' has now turned up!) The thing that makes this album a little unusual is the two songs with lead singing by Dave Davies. 'Living on a Thin Line' is a good song.
This album was made in a time of crisis. Dave Davies could no longer stand working with the drummer Mick Avory, so Mick was fired. Dave and Ray's relationship was deteriorating. Ray's relationship with the Pretenders lead singer, Chrissie Hynde, was breaking up. So this is an uncomfortable sort of album. Good, but uncomfortable. I guess it was only a matter of time before things fell apart forever...
Labels: 1984, Album Project, The Kinks, Word of Mouth
