Madness - One Step Beyond

Of the millions of albums which have been recorded, only 15 can make it into The Lucy Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musician's and at number 10 we have One Step Beyond by Madness  (1979).

There were a few Ska bands around in the late 70s and early 80s, bands like The Specials, Bad Manners and The Beat and while i was drawing Siouxsie Sioux make up on my Cindy Dolls and falling into the Punk movement, my brother would be in his bedroom playing Madness singles and despite my constant advice that him and his speeded up reggae music was lame, i did like them but i wasn't ever going to admit it to him.
A DJ friend always said that whenever a disco was dying on its arse, he would whack on One Step Beyond as it was a sure way to get people up and dancing and i can't hear that song now without seeing groups of lads going from standing around trying to look cool to doing that jerky arm waving dance only Sugg's seemed to be able to do properly.
As this was the debut album it has all their best songs because Madness started off brilliant but as they got more famous, their songs became more 'grown-up' and they rapidly went downhill over the next few albums and they finally broke up after no longer bothering the top 20 of the charts.
Over the years Sugg's has become something of a National Treasure and the group played on the roof of Buckingham Palace at the Queen's Golden Jubilee and they are back touring again and i went along with my brother to see them in concert a few years ago but it was the early hits that they played and which got the best reception which proves that although some bands mature and change style successfully, it never worked for them and the style change did them no favour's whatsoever.