Howdy, and welcome to this week’s Pop Essays, bringing you another lesser starred gem of pop music to ease you gently into this Easter weekend. This week: a truly mad and magnificent debut single…
- Artist: Leilani
- Song: Madness Thing
- Released: 25/01/1999
- Writers / Producers: Leilani / The Brussle Bruvvers / Wayne Anthony
- Highest UK Chart Position: #19
- Chart Run: 19 – 24 – 33 – 55
One reason why I was excited to get writing this series again after a gap of almost three years was the number of songs which had finally made their way to the digital age in that time which I had been itching to write about.
I’ve often spoken on this corner of the interweb about my love of the amazing Pop Music Activism account on social media, who work tirelessly with old record labels in getting the rights sorted to long forgotten gems that this present writer thrives on writing about back online.
This week’s featured song and artist finally making it to streaming almost a year ago wasn’t technically of their doing, but I am happy to credit them in part with it finally being so, because it feels like an artist they would have championed the corner of anyway.
The huge pop explosion in the mid-late 90s really did usher in a new golden age of pop music. And 1999 was probably the zenith of that: just before saturation point, and yet still able to produce some interesting new artists, with an equally interesting concept behind them. And Leilani was certainly one of these for us.
It was whilst working at recording studios in Primrose Hill in London owned by friends of her brother, with dreams of being a musical theatre performer, that her brother suggested to them that she would make a great popstar. Unwittingly, an audition followed, which then turned into multiple studio sessions that was actually the recording of what would become her debut album, Precious Treasure.
After signing to ZTT Records, the legendary label founded by super producer Trevor Horn, with names such as Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Grace Jones and Seal on its roster, and with a futuristic, cyber chick meets manga character image (the comic book character Tank Girl, created by Jamie Hewlett, better known in recent years for his work with Gorillaz, was a heavy reference), Leilani was poised to become one of the first new big music success stories when launched in January 1999.
And she had the perfect single to launch herself with. The first thing we should say about “Madness Thing” is that, in the cold light of day in 2024, it sounds like it could have come along at any point in the last 25 years, and yet doesn’t sound like it has at the same time. But try and picture yourself in 1999. Britney Spears is about to launch, Steps are the new pop kids on the block. Teen oriented pop ruled the waves.
Then you hear this song for the first time, which introduces itself with a two second electric organ riff like a clarion call, giving way to a jangly guitar and scratchy breakbeat bit with Leilani doing a little “Do do do do” melody, and then into easily some of the best verses we’ve ever heard in a pop song: “When your baby’s just been born / And when the nun has just been shorn / Don’t cha just love the madness of it all? … And when your boyfriend comes home early / To find you sucking on a Curly Wurly / Don’t cha just hate the madness of it all?”
The thing that works so well about “Madness Thing” is that this is pure, mad-as-a-box-of-frogs, what-the-hell-is-that kitchen sink pop of the very best kind, with a chorus that spins around your head after several listens: “Touch me, touch me with your madness thing / Touch me, touch me, make me swing”.
What was it’s blessing, however, was also it’s curse; with the likes of Xenomania still about three years away, nobody was really doing this kind of pop music yet that was so utterly bombastic that the artist and the artist alone behind it made it work. There was very little around like it. It was just a case of right idea being executed at the wrong time.
It thus meant that, for better or worse, it was not a record you could sit on the fence about. And while we’re loathed to use the term “Marmite record”, that’s precisely what this was. Except “Marmite spread on a banana with crispy bits sprinkled on top record” might have been more applicable a description for “Madness Thing”; after a sitar breakdown, there’s a weird rapped middle 8 bit by an unknown guest rapper, but which is mimed in the futuristic looking video by one of her backup dancers, who looks rather like Labrinth(!)
“Madness Thing” debuted and peaked at #19 upon its release, spending just three weeks of its four week chart run inside the top 40. Even with a Top of the Pops performance under her belt, complete with her ironing board jumping dancers, it was evident that something hadn’t quite crossed over yet. So the dice was rolled again following a support slot with Boyzone on their UK arena tour, with “Do You Want Me?“. Debuting a whole 21 places lower, it just scraped in at #40 in June.
Almost a year later, “Flying Elvis“, with its utterly kitsch air hostess set video before either Britney or Busted got the memo on doing so, was released, and it just about made the top 75. And that was the end of Leilani – until of course, last year, when Precious Treasure finally saw the light of day and was released on digital download and streaming.
And since her rather impressive turn on the BBC’s reactivated run of Survivor UK at the end of 2023 – she made the final, and was the last girl standing – she’s since turned back to music once again, self releasing two excellent singles (“Got To Go” and “Wicked Knickers“) which carry on the proud tradition of left-of-centre pop she established for herself back at the turn of the millennium.
Don’t forget to follow our Pop Essays playlist on Spotify, which includes this and all the songs we’ve written about. What are your memories of this week’s featured song or band? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or message us on our Instagram.
The Niche Reference 