New single out this week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_GnfeIbbvQ Like their last album in 1999, it would have fit perfectly well in their discography at their creative peak round about 1983.

Madness were my 'first' band, the first I properly adored, largely due to my much elder sister having all the records, and I suspect the same applies to a lot of people around my age. It's funny how they've become beloved entertainers with their suits and their walks and their Christmas gigs, and yet at the time they were in with 2-Tone and New Pop and wrote endless fantastic British pop songs with hidden depths (Yesterday's Men, One Better Day, most of The Rise And Fall album, Embarrassment about Lee Thompson's sister's mixed race child and their parents' reaction thereof) and spot-on arrangements. They were never going to be Spandau Ballet, and that's why, well beyond that thing Suggs does where he stretches his arms out and gurns, they remain special.