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On This Day.
How old does this make me feel two classic albums from my youth 41 years ago.
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Celebrating the 41st Anniversary of ONE STEP BEYOND, the debut album from MADNESS (19th October 1979).
Hailing from the Camden Town area of North London, Madness were a fusion of influences. Big ‘Kilburn & The High Roads’ fan Lee Thompson brought the Ian Dury influences with him while Chas, Suggs and Chrissy Boy's record collections provided the bluebeat. And Chas developed his ‘nutty dance’ routine while larking around to 'Liquidator' at youth clubs.
They began life in ‘76 as The Invaders, later The North London Invaders, and moved from rehearsing at home and playing parties to pub gigs before changing their name to Madness in January 1979. An uncomplicated and easily digestible image laid the foundations for a stream of hit singles.
Their debut album ONE STEP BEYOND arrived in the record racks on the same date as The Specials first LP in a country waking up to a ska renaissance. But Madness were different, they had the ska beat but their style was less intense, much more seaside postcard humour and naughty Dury-esque wit.
Their songs were more concerned with underwear thieves, borstal boys, lodgers and a wealth of other comic book characters. The pure dance numbers alternated with excellent Cockney vignettes.
Plus they had the loony dance steps of Chas Smash, the fairground sax of Lee Thompson and scatty organ grind of Mike ‘Monsieur Barso’ Barson. With Suggs on vocals, Chrissy Boy on guitar, Woody on drums and Mark ‘Bedders’ Bedford on bass, their new ska sound had a stamp of its own.
Appearing on the fledgling 2-Tone label, a debut single ‘The Prince’ was issued and became the label’s second hit. Madness were then snapped up by Stiff Records who released their second single, a version of Prince Buster's 'One Step Beyond'. The song shot up the hit parade, while the album of the same name jumped into the Top Ten, peaking at #2 in November 1979, and stayed in the charts for a grand total of 79 weeks.
Over 15 tracks, the album managed to capture the essence of life as a teenager in working class London. From its blue-beat base, tall tales emerged of Saturday nights out and romance amongst the drunken debris, the whole thing embellished with the insouciant sound of circus organs and seaside fairgrounds.
The video here is Madness' appearance on Top Of The Pops performing NIGHT BOATO CAIRO.
The performance followed a period where the BBC had hesitated inviting the band back on the show. That was after their last appearance with ‘My Girl, when saxophonist Lee Thompson was berated by TOTP producers for not taking the show seriously enough (hilarious).
However, thanks to the band’s rapidly rising popularity the Beeb had little choice but to ask them back.
Adopting the regulation Madness response and wearing an array of Arabian headdresses and fezzes, plus Suggs in an oversized pith helmet, on this occasion ALL the band refuse to take the show seriously.
Yup, 2 great albums, I still give both a listen now & then & both have aged well.
Pushing it a tad to say "my youth" though...
Celebrating the 41st Anniversary of the release of the debut album by THE SPECIALS (October 19th 1979).
THE SPECIALS sleeve was a study in genre attitude: a black and white chequered strip and a monochrome photo of the band in skinny suits, pork pie hats and wraparound shades, glowering up at the camera.
The predominant musical influence was, of course, ska, bluebeat, reggae and soul, but it also came wrapped in ferocious rock'n'roll: the kind of hybrid that many other British bands tried to contrive, for better or for worse.
The video here is BLANK EXPRESSION.
Lines that conjure the desolate conclusion to a fated relationship, the mournful ska of BLANK EXPRESSION was described by Smash Hits in 1980 as a contrast between the abrasive “Midland tones” of Terry Hall “and the racy patter of Neville Staples” that made “the whole punky reggae idea work”, that made “Specials songs like 'Blank Expression' and 'Concrete Jungle' dramatic stories rather than mere chirpy throwaways.”
Along with the “vibrant agit-pop came songs dating back to the group’s Coventry Automatics days that found main lyricist Jerry Dammers sorting through the bitter debris of a particularly painful break-up,” wrote Stevie Chick for The Guardian in 2015.
“Most affecting of all the chapters from this love-story-gone-wrong is Blank Expression, a forlorn torch song set to an about-to-fall-apart skank that finds our hero unexpectedly crossing paths with his ex.”
'I walk in the bar and immediately I sense danger
Then you look at me as if I was some sort of stranger
Where did you get that blank expression
On your face?' ('Blank Expression')
“And that’s the potent sting of Blank Expression: that indifference hurts so much more than hatred, that this really is the end, and all our hero is left with is his own loneliness, which Dammers conjures marvelously in the form of a desolate, wintery Coventry: “The streets are dark and there’s no one about / I wander home and all the lights are out.”