Silver Convention - 1976 - Madhouse

Silver Convention - 1976 - Madhouse

Label: Midland International Records
Catalog#: BKL1-1824
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: US
Released: 1976
Genre: Electronic
Style: Disco

Credits:

Bass - Gary Unwin
Congas - Elmer Louis
Drums, Percussion - Martin Harrison (2)
Keyboards - Silvester Levay*
Producer - Michael Kunze , Silvester Levay*
Strings - Fritz Sonnleitner
Vocals - Penny McLean , Ramona Wolf , Rhonda Heath
Written By - Silvester Levay, Michael Kunze

Tracklisting:

A1 The World Is A Madhouse (7:10)
A2 Plastic People (3:35)
A3 I'm Not A Slot Machine (3:22)
A4 Fancy Party (4:55)
B1 Dancing In The Aisles (5:29)
B2 Everybody's Talking 'Bout Love (3:31)
B3 Magic Mountain (5:56)
B4 Midnight Lady (4:22)
B5 Land Of Make Believe (3:41)

Codec: Lame 3.92
Quality: CBR, 320kbps, stereo

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Review by Søren Jensen http://rateyourmusic.com/

Silver Convention burst into the disco scene in 1975 with a fantastic novelty album including such classic hits as "Save Me" and "Fly Robin Fly", member Penny McLean had a monstruous German solo hit single with "Lady Bump" before Silver Convention's second album "Get Up And Boogie" which was another hit record although the formula was already starting to wear thin.
For Silver Convention's third album, producers Sylvester Levay and Michael Kunze decided to change direction. Abandoning the simple one-liner-lyrics, they composed the "Madhouse" oratorio, based on this sinister story:

All of a sudden M. realized that he wasn’t free.
He was stuck inside four walls on which every morning the latest news were written.
The people who came to see M. were made out of plastic. Obviously their voices came from a pre-recorded tape,repeating all the time just one word: Money.
M. ran away. He wanted to see human beings. So he went to a party. But nobody there was what he seemed to be. It was all a masquerade. In his embarrassment M. started to pray.
Somebody must have heard that he longed to be in heaven.
They gave M. a ticket and put him on a 747.
No one understood why M. cried when he came down again.
A radio and a tv-set were installed in M.’s lonely room to comfort him. M. destroyed everything in anger.
That was when the devil tempted him, offering a ride to the Magic Mountain.
But M. refused to follow. Somebody had told him that there was no way back from that trip.
‘I’ve got another remedy’, the devil said. ‘It’s called Sex and it can make you happy’. But what the devil calls happiness is usually a lie.
M. had to learn that.
In his greatest desperation a strange thing happened.
M. fell asleep and dreamed that he was living in a wonderful land of peace and freedom.
It was so easy. All M. had to do was to close his eyes and to forget that he was locked up in a madhouse.

Packaged in an outrageously bizarre cover with a psychedelic painting of a madhouse, this wasn't an album made for the glamourous disco floors but a dark, compelling, funky album with robotic, almost ghostly vocals by Silver Convention girls Penny McLean, Ramona Wulf, and new member Afro-American Rhonda Heath who'd replaced Linda G. Thompson. All the tracks are great, strange and melancholic. The only single lifted from the album was "Fancy Party" which was obviously modelled as a follow-up to "Get Up And Boogie" - when it didn't catch fire, it was quickly flipped over, and the B-side "Everybody's Talking 'bout Love" became the A-side and went to the UK #26 although it was a flop in Germany. In the US, they opted for "Dancin' In The Aisle (Of A 747)" which had a very "Fly Robin Fly"-esque riff as the only single - it was a disappointing #102 after two #1-hits. Short on hits or not, the "Madhouse" album remains an excellent album all the through and is highly recommended.