Frenchy’s Favorites: Madhouse - 8
General Description
Artist/Band: Madhouse
Album Title: 8
Year: 1987
Do try to pay attention, my good man!
(image from http://eil.com)
How I Got Into This Music
In my youth, when LP’s were still relevant and existent even outside the dance scene and just after the meteor tipped the scales in favor of us small hairy mammals.. uhm.. Were was I? Oh..
Well anyway, in those times I was a very enthousiastic fan of the One They Sometimes Call Prince. And in 1987 or 1988 I was a very happy puppy when I was able to get a ticket to see his concert (I’m guessing the Sign of the Times Tour..)
So during that time I was browsing albums at a store and immediately stopped to look a bit better at a very interesting cover of a band called Madhouse. No grown man can honestly state that the interest was because of the dog, get frigging real! After a while I recognised the band as being the support act for Prince’s concert, so now I was really interested (honestly!)
I taped the album and my world got blown away.. Just to make it clear: the album title really is “8″ and the tracks are named numerically..
Tracks that got my attention (well, all of them actually, but still..):
1(I swear it’s the title of the track!)
Oooh.. Eric Leeds on saxophone! Very groovy, jazzy track with laidback weird background keyboards
2
It’s that incredibly mellow feeling you get from this track that works for me..
3
First of the two fantastic ballads - this one’s a classy bedroom slow-strip track, so dim the lights and have some slow love..
4
Great intro, drums and bass setting up a great track. JazzFunky Bass freak out works for me just fine!
5
Phone conversations, incredible drum performance, ooooooweeee! Funky to the max bass play.. drool..
6
Great track - I heard a DJ play it and it worked! That the first time I heard any Madhouse in public (my point? dunno..)
7
Bit more on the jazzy side, the sax theme can creep up in my head on the weirdest of moments
8
Song of Songs and that’s quite some praise. I can’t start to explain the feelings you get from this song: sometime it’s like a lullaby, sometimes it’s like a dreamscape or a walk in the park but that park has tangerine striped flamingoes and other weird sights and sounds that’d make Lewis Carroll reconsider his abilities..
Exaggerated praise? Yep, maybe.. So? It’s an incredibly beautiful track, so there!
Conclusion
First of all: on the album, nobody’s credited for anything, except the lovely lady on the cover, but she’s been blessed quite enough. The myth tells that Madhouse was another project by the Purple One. Obviously he had some of his brilliantly talented entourage play on the album.
After “8″ there was “16″ and of course it had the same high quality of artistic genius for an album cover. Oh, and the album was great too. Third album “24″ is a hard to get piece of work.
“8″ stands out for me as being an ear-opener: that combination of sounds and styles was a first for me. The whole setup was intriguing which is how Paisley Park operated those days. The album still works for me as a piece of music and as a mood altering substance.
