Album Review: Madness - Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da

Don't let the multilingual title of ska/pop legends Madness fool you – they haven't released a foreign language album. What they have released is their tenth studio album and it is a mighty fine one indeed.

The album starts with My Girl 2, so-called as a kind of response to their track 1979 My Girl. Unlike its namesake, it doesn't deal with the trials and tribulations of an angry “girl”; this time around, they're concentrating on the positive. However, it's not long before they take on a more evocative tone with Never Knew Your Name. For a band that have so many contributing songwriters, it's funny that these two almost opposing songs (one dealing with having found the “right one” and the other with lost love) are the only two penned solely by Mike Barson (not counting Black And Blue, one of the three bonus tracks, mind you). La Luna has something of an underlying menacing tone that is reminiscent of previous album, The Liberty Of Norton Folgate's title track (Graham “Suggs” McPherson's songwriting contribution on both tracks could factor here). Kitchen Floor sees the band return to more of a ska-based rhythm, albeit a very slow one, but they speed it up for Misery, a track that basically gives you a swift kick in the pants (lyrically-speaking) if you're feeling sorry for yourself. Death Of A Rude Boy is a rather dark ska number that rounds out the main album nicely.

One of the great things about Madness, aside from the fact that, well, they are Madness and have a cheeky charm that just does not seem to die, is that after 36 years, they're still able to release quality material that does not rely on rehashing what they've done in the past.