Given that he is the producer behind some of the most cherished and idiosyncratic British pop of the 1980s, from Elvis Costello to Dexys Midnight Runners and the Teardrop Explodes, Clive Langer sounds surprisingly bad at predicting what will do well. “I was invited to possibly work with Madonna, around the time of Holiday,” he remembers. “I went to see her at the Music Machine and I just didn’t get it. I still don’t get it.” So he turned her down. And when Dexys laid down Come on Eileen with Langer behind the mixing desk, he didn’t think it would be a hit. “I was completely wrong. I never had the faith.”
It duly reached No 1 and became the biggest-selling single of 1982, just one of the many triumphs Langer had with production partner Alan Winstanley. Together they shaped a generation of British pop with David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Lloyd Cole, plus eight full albums with Madness across five decades.
