Before We Was We, Mike Barson
Before We Was We, Mike Barson
List: $14.62 | Sale: $10.23
Club: $7.31

Before We Was We
Madness by Madness

Author: Mike Barson, Mark Bedford, Chris Foreman, Graham McPherson, Cathal Smyth, Lee Thompson, Dan Woodgate

Narrator: Mike Barson, Mark Bedford, Chris Foreman, Dan Woodgate, Graham McPherson, Cathal Smyth, Lee Thompson

Unabridged: 7 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Virgin Digital

Published: 10/17/2019


Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

Shortlisted for the Best Ensemble Narration Award at the New York Festival Radio Awards 2020.

This audiobook is Madness' story in their own words - with each band member featuring as a narrator.

In their own words they each look back on their shared adventures. Playing music together, riding freight trains, spraying graffiti and stealing records. Walking in one another's footsteps by day and rising up through the city's exploding pub music scene by night. Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tom on July 21, 2020

Impossible to put down Heading the story of the band’s early years from their very own mouths, added an element of realism to the whole fame/success thing that can be missing from a straight bio. I must be getting old, because I found myself incredibly disappointed in the band’s continued light finger......more

Goodreads review by Fiona on October 26, 2019

I enjoyed this book a lot and including every member of the band's thoughts added a lot to the story. I did feel a bit sad that Cathal's voice felt quite separate from the rest of the band somehow. Like their first album his picture isn't included in the front of the book and sometimes the story doe......more

Goodreads review by Dancall on July 05, 2020

A very entertaining audiobook, read by the different members of the band, covering childhood up to the release of My Girl, which turned them from a Ska band into a pop group, or even a boyband. It’s very well told by the band, and it’s particularly good when Two Tone becomes a movement and the band......more

Goodreads review by Gary on April 15, 2020

Not the best written book you will ever read, it's more like a magazine article than a book, and I'd imagine the Audiobook is even better than the printed word. A fascinating insight into growing up in post war London - I must admit I really didn't like the band as people initially but as they grow......more

Goodreads review by Christine on July 24, 2025

Interesting book about madness and their run up to fame. They were very typical of the boys you’d come across in London in 70s; bit loud, bit leery and quite daft. For the madness crew they were lucky, they got out and turned their teenage nonsense into a pretty lucrative and enduring music act. The......more


Quotes

A rollicking oral history of Madness’s early years ... a goldmine of quirky anecdotes Q Magazine

[One of] the best books to buy music fans for Christmas The Telegraph

Brilliantly assembled by journalist Tom Doyle as an oral history featuring the voices of all the members … tells you more about how a band becomes a band than any number of anecdotes about life in the studio Financial Times

As much as anything, the book is a social history of growing up on the edges of criminality Financial Times

An amazing book … one of the best books about a band I have ever read. I've been raving about it to everyone I meet