Customer Reviews
HEY YOU, DONT BUY THAT, READ THIS !! - By: J. Stark, 06 Sep 2008 
WARNING- This entire collection is inlayed with rambling interviews from various sidekicks, hangers ons, friends, aquaintances etc etc. You will maybe want to hear them ONCE. However it is impossible to program them out as they runin & out of the music.
SO Don't buy this as it will sit on your cd rack (looking good!) after one play. A terribly thought up concept!!
People talking over the end of every second song?! - By: Penn Name, 01 Jan 2008 
Potentially good compilation of singles, B-sides & rarities, except that:
1) Short interviews have been placed between the songs- mildly interesting first time round, but you won't to hear them every time. So you'll want to program them out (and there are a lot of them). Unfortunately....
2) You *can't* do that because they haven't been put on separate tracks, just stuck onto the end of the songs. So you have to manually skip them using the "next track" button. But...
3) The interviews start before the songs have finished, so you get these people talking *over* the fadeout (andin at least one case over the start of the next song). If you ever taped songs off the radio as a kid, you'll be familiar with this, but I bet you never thought you'd get that on a "proper" CD.
The songs themselves include (obviously) lots of great singles, & some other decent tracks. Since this album is meant to include B-sides (and rarities) too, you can't expect them all to be classics, & they're not; some are pure filler. But that's the nature of the beast, & the good stuff outweighs the bad.
If it wasn't spoiled by the badly-placed interviews, I'd have said that this set was good value for money.
Brilliance ruined - By: PLC_BOD, 28 Apr 2006 
Great selection of songs, some of which I'd never heard, brilliant!!
Then you find someone has dubbed a load of waffle to the end of some the tunes, what an annoyance. Every time you play the CDs you're forced to listen to god knows who talking rubbish.
For example "Shadow on my house" finishes at 3.13 but the track is 4.50, thats 1 & half minutes of someone going on about nothingin particular, everytime you listen to the track.
Thank god for computers. Time to edit the tracks myself & burn new CDs.
Sheer Madness - By: , 25 Feb 2006 
This is a comprehenisive singles & b-sides collection of Madness. It shows that they were one of the best singles bands ever as the hits consistently appear. there are also gems of songs like riding on my bike which is the tune to drivingin my car but with different lyrics.
Overall this boxset is a great buy for anyone who is a madness fan however if you have ony heard one or two madness songs then buy the divine madness CD as it is a more consistently strong set of songs.
Mixed Feelings - By: Mr. M. A. Woodall, 24 Dec 2004 This truly fantastic collection of music is spoilt by the inclusion of pointless & irritating sound-bites from interviews with Madness-related personnel. This would have been fine on a bonus disc but many of these quotes are actually edited on to the backs & the beginnings of certain tracks so there is no clean break inbetween! Do you really want to hear the words of Madness' lawyer each time you play this disc? Essential listening if you are a sad Madness fan like myself but I must recommend the 'It's Madness' & 'It's Madness Too' compilations which are both still available on CD. They feature A & B sides without any irritating chatter inbetween!
