The Rise & Fall is the fourth
studio album by English ska band
Madness, released on 5 November 1982 by
Stiff Records.[1] This album saw Madness at their most experimental, exhibiting a range of musical styles including
jazz, English
music hall, and
Eastern influences. NME described it at the time of its release as "the best Madness record". It has often been retrospectively described as a
concept album.
Though the album was never released in the US, several tracks were later placed on the compilation Madness (1983), including "
Our House", the band's only top 10 hit in America.[2]
Content
Initially conceived as a concept album about nostalgia for childhood, the concept was eventually dropped, though the original theme is still evident particularly in the title track and the album's major hit "
Our House".[3] This theme was also mentioned recently when interviewed as part of
T in the Park highlights, where their lead vocalist
Suggs claimed that all the band members were told to write about their childhood memories for The Rise & Fall (although he did say that their keyboardist
Mike Barson got the wrong idea, and went off and wrote about
New Delhi).[citation needed]
Although the band had previously been avowedly
apolitical, the track "Blue Skinned Beast" was an overt satire on then-UK Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher and her handling of the
Falklands War,[4] paving the way for more political comment on subsequent Madness albums.
The album cover photo was shot just west of
Camden Town at the
Primrose Hill viewpoint, looking southeast towards central London with the
BT Tower on the horizon.
In a retrospective review for
AllMusic, critic
Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that "The Rise & Fall is recognizably Madness in sound and sensibility; faint echoes of their breakneck nutty beginnings can be heard on 'Blue Skinned Beast' and 'Mr. Speaker Gets the Word', the melodies are outgrowths of such early masterpieces as '
My Girl', there’s a charming, open-hearted humor and carnivalesque swirl that ties everything together." He also noted that "the rest of the record contains the same wit, effervescence, and joy, capturing what British pop life was all about in 1982, just as
the KinksVillage Green Preservation Society did in 1968 or
Blur's Parklife would do in 1994."[5]
In 2009 and 2010, Madness re-released their entire back catalogue of studio albums up until 1999's Wonderful with a bonus CD and extra tracks. The Rise & Fall was reissued by Union Square Music's collector's label Salvo in June 2010.[9]
CD 1
The original album
The first disc contains the thirteen tracks from the original album and four promo videos.