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Madness Central Discography
Every Madness Item Ever Released, Anywhere!!!
The Madness Retro Shop
http://www.retro-madness.co.uk
An online service to fans wanting to pick up Madness collectibles from yesteryear. 30 years of deleted official Madness items all under one roof. Over 1250 different items currently in stock, with further items being added all the time.
http://www.retro-madness.co.uk
An online service to fans wanting to pick up Madness collectibles from yesteryear. 30 years of deleted official Madness items all under one roof. Over 1250 different items currently in stock, with further items being added all the time.
Aside from their music, it has always been their striking artwork and a style unique to themselves that has set Madness apart from all of the other bands of their generation. Their reputation as a ‘singles’ band is not without good reason. They sold 6,000,000 singles during the 1980s, far more than any other UK band. Averaged between their 23 hits from 1979 to 1986, this equates to 260,000 records sold per single! Compare this to the approx 20,000 sales required to get a Number 1 single these days and its clear that Madness have been deprived of 22x Number 1 hits !
It was their days at Stiff Records when the marketing team got the whole Madness ‘product’ down to a fine art. Good quality weighted vinyl discs and brightly coloured glossy sleeves, with often record labels to match, made Madness 7”s and 12”s an instant collectable for fans young and old. Stiff realised they had struck gold and made every effort to maximise sales of the early singles by releasing sleeve and label variations of the same track and even experimenting with new formats such as the cassette single…but it was with House of Fun that the Stiff machine went into overdrive, finally a Picture Disc was released to the delight of every Madness fan. They proved so popular that a limited run of picture discs was pressed for every single released thereafter, right through to Ghost Train. By ‘Limited Edition’ of course Stiff were well aware how to stretch boundaries, the House of Fun picture disc for instance was marketed as a ‘Limited Edition’ of no less than 75,000 !!!
But it wasn’t only their singles that had Madness fans dashing to the record shops, the albums as well have achieved massive sales and become just as essential, if not more so, to the Madness buying public. Suddenly the phenomenon of Madness’s collectability spread beyond the UK and whilst these days there will often be just one release pressed for all the EU countries, back in the 80s pressing plants in each country would run off their own versions of each Madness release and suddenly fans would find that not only were they having to buy all their own country’s releases but all the international releases too. Some countries, such as Japan, well aware of this lucrative export market, made every effort to give a bit extra to the visual appeal of the singles and albums and thus maximise their global export potential.
Foreword from Madness Discography Project Manager - Chris Carter-Pegg:
As a fan of the band since the release of Baggy Trousers when I was a mere 7 years old, I was definitely among the generation of fans that were swept along by the Madness / Stiff marketing machine. Firstly making it my goal to buy all of the 7”s, it wasn’t long before this spread to Cassettes, LPs, 12”s, Videos and then ultimately CDs etc. When asked what the difference is between a Madness fan and a Madness collector, I think the best definition is that a fan is someone who is very content to have a recording of every Madness track ever written, whilst a collector is someone who aims to have not only every recording, but in every format it was ever released in and from every country it was ever made in! Consequently collectors are rarely content!
Whilst many excellent attempts have been made to put together a Madness Discography in the past, they have never been fully comprehensive. This discography aims not only to provide the worlds first ever 100% complete listing of Madness releases, but also to be a constantly updated resource for whenever undiscovered rarities come to light and new items are released. Ultimately pictures of each item will also be provided.
As well as providing details of exactly what items are out there, fans and collectors are usually intrigued to know how much their items are worth and how much they should be expected to pay for items they don’t have. New collectors are often astonished to discover the enormous variation in prices of Madness items, for instance, from a Ghost Train 7” worth say £2, to a Ghost Train picture disc worth nearer £50, to an uncut Ghost Train picture disc worth nearer £1,000! Admittedly this is the most extreme example I could use, but the reality behind this massive variation is that there are probably around 150,000 Ghost Train 7”s in existence, only say 1000+ Ghost Train picture discs and perhaps less than 5 uncut Ghost Train picture discs. Hence ultimately an item’s value comes down to the market forces of supply and demand. Whilst at times even the selling price of a single item can vary quite notably, this discography also includes a rough price guide for each item, to give a bit of assistance to fans and collectors alike.
The first five sections of the discography are self explanatory and the items listed within them are ordered by country of origin and release date. However, what they do not include are either test pressings, which I refer to as demos (to be distinguished from promos), nor mis-pressings, nor bootlegs. As factory test pressings (demos) would be made of every vinyl release before the final version is mass produced, there seems little merit in producing an endless list of these in-house items. Likewise illicit bootleg copies can be made on any scale and of any Madness recording so a comprehensive list would be impossible. Nevertheless, to satisfy a level of interest that will always exist for these items, the final section details the most notable demos and mis-pressings, as well as the most infamous factory pressed bootlegs!
Should you own an official Madness release that you cannot find anywhere in this discography but you believe should be included, please email me at the address below, including a jpeg of the said item, country of origin, record company and catalogue number and I will be very happy to consider it for inclusion.
collectmadness@ymail.com
Remember, the best collections are never complete! - Chris
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