Quote:
Originally Posted by SBWNik
Hardly ska tracks though. The Specials had lost the plot by then, and House Of Fun is a pop track.
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I agree with House of Fun, in a positive way - Madness is one of the greatest British Second Wave Ska bands who did go Pop for a while, but mainly in a Ray Davies-Late 60's greatness tradition although they slipped quite a bit once Mike Barson left around the time of Keep Moving. They got back to Ska-influenced roots after a long while, and it's good...thankfully, hardly anyone remembers their failed 1987-8 80's Pop incarnation as The Madness.
As far as The Specials went, their first two albums are still very good in my book, and yes I'm guilty for liking More Specials (Side One, however, is still damn sharp to my ears), and the entire "Ghost Town" EP is solid. To me, the magic was lost with In The Studio With The Special AKA, although it did have one monster single in it with "Free Nelson Mandela." Sadly, their 1996 return was even more regrettable than "The Madness" (Today's Specials, the ill-fated "Update" with some good choices for covers, and then that slip of with quality of recording Neil Diamond's "A Little But Me, A Little Bit You" which really killed off the hope for a while).