Madness to play Sayer hit (8)
I believe the answer is:
hysteria
'madness' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'play sayer hit' is the wordplay.
'play' indicates anagramming the letters.
'sayer'+'hit'='sayerhit'
'sayerhit' is an anagram of 'HYSTERIA'.
'to' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hysteria that I've seen before include "neurotic disorder" , "Mental disturbance" , "Emotional and uncontrollable outburst" , "Ogden -, US poet" , "highly emotional state" .)