As one of the few acts of their time Madness kept alive the tradition of typical single British bands like The Kinks, The Small Faces and The Jam. The band came up in the so-called Two Tone era of the late seventies, as a generation of British bands is influenced by ska and rocksteady from Jamaica. The band is characterized by an eccentric, 'nutty' stage act and funny video clips. In the eighties,
… the band scored hit after hit with the original skasound was never completely abandoned, all that evolved slowly into a mature pop sound. The nasal vocals of frontman Suggs as ever recognizable trademark manages to keep the bandstand into the twenty-first century. In 2009, after years of silence appears a real concept album about the history of London: Liberty Of Norton Folgate.more