REVIEW: Music Madness

It is so close to being brilliant. Although it is still good I can’t help but be frustrated by it and want to throw it around the room.

You show a deck of cards where each card has 3 songs from a specific year printed on it, covering the last 53 years. Your participant freely chooses any card and any song from the card. The card is lost back in the deck. You pick up your phone and place it on their hands, make a magical gesture and the screen of your phone shows a cassette playing and it is their song!

The effect is great, right up my street even though it uses a phone. Audio reveals are great fun and music is something which can evoke emotions and start conversations. I really can’t fault the simple idea of Music Madness.

I also love the way it is cassette that plays on your phone to reveal the song. The retro styling matches the idea of music from the past and adds a lovely bit of charm and nostalgia.

The tutorial is by Mariano himself and English is not his first language, so he deserves your patience. He still does a pretty good job of running through the presentation which is straightforward enough as is the installation of the app. It has a few settings which you can play with but nothing complicated.

The standard input method is very new to me and took a bit of getting used to before I was relaxed when doing it. I was expecting it to be done as you were unlocking your phone but this is possibly more deceptive as you don’t touch the screen at all.

So far, all a big thumbs up! But then there is the back of the cards!

The face of the cards with the songs on are fine and designed as a song guessing game. However the back of the deck is like a standard playing card. I don’t get it. Is this a music card game or a set of playing cards? It looks like neither. It hasn’t bothered participants but I feel I’m missing out on selling the premise and having more fun with the music hook.

Simon Says by Simon Lipkin does this brilliantly, you demo the game and then launch into the trick, I wish this was possible with Music Madness, it seems madness it isn’t.

And now the big issue. I hate the markings. Despite their size the font used makes them tricky to read, I have got better with familiarity but it is very irritating. I do admit to getting on in years and need reading glasses so perhaps younger eyes won’t have the same problem. One solution is to have the cards in order so the preceding card can be peeked as they choose a song from their selection. Giving a little more time and misdirection.

I wouldn’t mind so much if there was a good reason, there are plenty of examples marked playing cards which do this so much better, Penguin Marked, Phoenix all the way back to Boris Wild. It is made worse by the fact that the back design should be customised to be a Music/Song card game which would allow much more freedom to incorporate a crystal-clear marking system. Again, Simon Says does this, or any of the work Phil,Smith has done for Craig Petty recently.

It is indeed Madness and it lets the product down. I’m furious!

All said and done, I really do like it and I do enjoy performing it.

But much like my DIY, I can’t help but see the imperfections.