Seven men who once defined British ska-pop were finally playing together as a full band again in a London studio. The group was Madness, and on November 1, 1999, their seventh studio album, Wonderful, was released in the United Kingdom. This was the first Madness studio record in eleven years, following The Madness in 1988, and the first with the classic seven-piece lineup since Keep Moving in 1984.
Failed reunions and abandoned sessions
The journey to that release was stop-and-go. Madness reunited in 1992 for the Madstock! festival and a Christmas tour, but efforts to compose new material kept falling apart. A three-month rehearsal period in Camden in 1993 dissolved because the band members had families and insufficient time. By 1997, sessions at John Henry Studios proceeded without singer Suggs and bassist Mark Bedford, and those demos were shelved without the complete lineup.
Then, in early 1999, the group announced a proper reunion for a new studio album. Rehearsals kicked off in February and lasted two months, and the bulk of Wonderful was recorded in just three weeks in April. Producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, who had worked on all the band's prior albums, returned to shape the sound, and Virgin Records released the final product.
The album blended old connections with new material. Suggs and keyboardist Mike Barson had been writing together since the late 80s, and the track '4am' was a re-recording of a song from Suggs's 1995 solo album, The Lone Ranger. Barson and saxophonist Lee Thompson co-wrote 'Lovestruck' and 'Drip Fed Fred.' For 'Drip Fed Fred,' Thompson met Ian Dury in an Amsterdam hotel and asked him to sing on it; Dury recorded his vocals in England.
The song that missed the cut
However, the album's most personal song never made the tracklist. Vocalist Cathal Smyth penned several songs for the record, including 'Johnny The Horse,' 'The Wizard,' and 'You're Wonderful.' The latter was dedicated to Smyth's late father. When it came time to select the final songs, Smyth insisted on including 'You're Wonderful' and offered to drop 'The Wizard' and 'Johnny The Horse' to make space.
The selection process devolved into a conflict. Smyth strongly advocated for his father's song, but ultimately, 'You're Wonderful' did not make the album and became a B-side instead. This cut meant the finished Wonderful lacked any of Smyth's most direct emotional investment, despite him having written or co-written several tracks that did appear. Barson wanted 'Round and Round,' written with Thompson, to be included, but it was also left off as a B-side. 'You're Wonderful' eventually surfaced only on the Japanese edition of the album. The completed record ran 41 minutes. Drummer Daniel Woodgate and Lee Thompson wrote 'Elysium' and 'No Money,' with Woodgate's brother Nick co-writing the latter. Mark Bedford and guitarist Chris Foreman contributed no songs to the album beyond co-writing the B-side 'Dreaming Man.'
What the public heard was a tight ska-pop record that brought Madness back into the spotlight. The album reached number 17 on the UK Albums Chart, and the first single, 'Lovestruck,' had already climbed to number 10 on the UK Singles Chart in July 1999. This marked the band's first top-10 single since 'The Sun And The Rain' in 1983. The record's visual presentation was also key to its return. Photographer Martin Parr shot the cover, while Mark Bedford designed the album. In 2010, a reissue added a bonus disc of B-sides and promo videos.
Wonderful demonstrated that the classic lineup could still create a cohesive album after more than a decade apart. Nevertheless, the album's final form was determined as much by what was left off as by what was included.