By 1976, rock music had become so saturated
with pretentiousness that people started to
react and a whole mass of styles developed.
The British Ska revival was one, led by the
Specials and Madness, adopting an authentic
attitude and philosophy that echoed the ska
bands of the 60s.
This is encapsulated in Madness early
albums; "One Step Beyond" included. Their
style was sometimes accused of not being
truly reflective of traditional Ska, and
their lyrics lacked the sense of protest
projected by some other bands. There may be
some truth in this, but they seemed to do so
with an attractive sense of innocence i.e.,
they said 'hey, this is just music, music to
enjoy... there are no politics here!!!
In terms of song writing, Madness were
probably one step beyond most of their
colleagues anyway. Lyrically, their song
tend to be influenced by observations of
working class Londoners and their experience
of life and relationships, with many
references to specific characters, local
newspapers, tube stations, etc, mixed with
more exotic locations i.e., Cairo, the
jungle etc.
"One Step Beyond" opens with the title
track- and Chas Smash demanding attention:
'hey you! Don't watch that, watch this!' He
refers to Prince Buster: 'Well listen
Buster........' who is obviously Madness'
main hero. There are two covers of Buster
songs: 'One Step Beyond' and 'Madness', a
song which, of course, they eventually named
themselves after. Also, 'The Prince' is
obviously a tribute.
Madness soon introduce their very skilful
song-writing ability with 'My Girl',
'Believe Me', and 'In the Middle of the
Night'. 'Night Boat to Cairo' (a regular
concert encore to this date) even attempts
to break the traditional pop format, with
its one single verse in the middle of the
track before a modulation from C-F. With
this track, Madness also show-off their
ability to musically depict the lyrical
content of their songs, with the
small-ranged chromatic melodies from voice
and instruments and the 'Lawrence of Arabia'
style harmonic sequences. We are led into a
military camp in 'Land of Hope and Glory',
which is echoed at the end in 'Chipmunks Are
Go' with its army-style call and response
chanting. There is a fabulous Ska rendition
of the main theme from Tchaikovsky's 'Swan
Lake', which urinates all over anything the
prog rockers attempted to do with classical
tracks in earlier years.
There are some weaker tracks towards the
end and this, unfortunately, became a bit of
a Madness trait. However, on "One Step
Beyond" it really doesn't matter. From the
moment Chas shouts those words and the band
kicks in, the energy will overtake you for
the next forty minutes, and there's no
stopping it.
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