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October 22, 2007

Madness: Back in Business

TDS Editors

“NW5”

“House of Fun” (live at Bestival, August 2007)

With a new album and a December arena tour in the offing, Madness are back in business. After a summer playing continental festivals, including unbilled, roof-raising sets at Glastonbury and Bestival, they are now recording their first new material in a decade. An album is tentatively scheduled for next year.

Madness do not even currently have a record deal, but they insist such trifling details scarcely matter in the download age. Like dozens of established pop brands, from Radiohead to Marillion, the Nutty Boys have realised they can function outside old-fashioned record industry rules. Their ambitious new manager, Gary Blackburn, has even hinted that the new album could be given away with a newspaper, following Prince’s example.

“A lot of boundaries seem to have broken,” says the Madness founder and keyboard player Mike Barson.

“Because the whole business is changing, it’s about how you utilise that energy. Prince giving away his album would have been incomprehensible a few years ago. But that’s just another way of doing it.”