Complete Madness


Complete Madness is the first greatest hits album by the English ska and pop band Madness. It was released on 23 April 1982 and included Madness' biggest hits from their first three studio albums and the stand-alone singles. Complete Madness spent 99 weeks on the UK charts, peaking at number 1.

Content

This compilation includes the original 7-inch single mixes of most tracks. The vinyl and initial CD releases have shortened fade-outs for many tracks, to reduce the running time of each side of the original LP version. The first time the songs appeared in full for this compilation was on the 2003 Virgin CD reissue.
The original Australian version of the album, issued some months later than in the UK, replaces "In the City" with 13th UK single "Driving in My Car".

Music video

An accompanying video cassette was also released, containing all thirteen of the group's music videos up to that point, with specially filmed introductions to each video, together with the car commercials the band had done for Honda in Japan.

Reception

Reviewing Complete Madness for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine deemed the compilation "thorough and thoroughly entertaining, encapsulating exactly why Madness were significant and, more importantly, how much fun their 'nutty sound' was", while also serving as "definitive proof that Madness were one of the great singles acts of their era."

Track listing

The following track listing is for the original 1982 UK release.

Personnel

;Madness
;Production