Divine Madness

While there’s a depth and darkness to be found in their albums which might surprise the casual acquaintance to Madness’s nutty boys pop persona, 1992 compilation Divine Madness went straight for the wheat and presented an all killer no filler line up of the band’s singles in chronological order from 1979 debut The Prince to the final A-side of their original incarnation, 1986’s (Waiting For) The Ghost Train. There was some trickery involved — ’86’s “Sweetest Girl,” which uncharacteristically only scraped into the UK Top 40, was omitted and the album version of “The Prince” replaces the recording which graced their debut 2-Tone release — but laid out like this, the likes of “My Girl,” “It Must Be Love,” “Our House” and more melancholic numbers “Embarrassment” and “Grey Day” provide irrefutable proof that Madness were one of the greatest singles acts of the era. Or any other for that matter.