Artist
Mad'House
Why we feature this artist Mad’House: familiar songs with the club lights turned up Mad’House made its introduction through songs an audience already knew. Like a Prayer places a new vocal performance and a tightly organised dance production around the Madonna…
- From
- France
- Sound
- house
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Tracks to explore
The artist, in context
The story of Mad'House
Why we feature this artist
Mad’House: familiar songs with the club lights turned up
Mad’House made its introduction through songs an audience already knew. Like a Prayer places a new vocal performance and a tightly organised dance production around the Madonna composition, keeping the melody close while changing the energy beneath it.
The 2002 introduction
Singer Buse Unlu became the vocal face of Mad’House, working with a French production team. Like a Prayer brought that combination to a broad audience in 2002, with a UK release on Serious and recordings associated with Babaorum.
The approach depends on a clear division between song and arrangement. The melody brings its own associations; the production supplies a more constant forward motion. A recognisable chorus can return with a different force when the drums and bass have been rebuilt around it.
Absolutely Mad
The album Absolutely Mad followed in 2002. Its programme extends the idea through Madonna songs including Holiday, La Isla Bonita, Like a Virgin and Into the Groove, alongside material such as Be Yourself.
The source songs have different melodic shapes, but the album gives them a shared production language. This is part of its particular early-2000s character: a familiar pop catalogue reorganised for a more uniform club setting, with the voice carrying the songs across the changes.
The performance at the centre
A cover of a famous recording faces an unusually immediate comparison. Mad’House answers by making the change in setting obvious. The rhythm announces a different kind of record before the listener has to decide how the vocal relates to the original.
Like a Prayer is the most direct point of entry. The album then shows how far the project could take the same idea, using recognition as the beginning of the arrangement rather than its whole purpose.
Essential releases
Like a Prayer
The breakthrough single reframes the Madonna composition in a new dance production.
Absolutely Mad
The album develops the project’s cover-based approach across a larger programme.
Like a Virgin
Another original Babaorum and Universal release from the album period.