One Step Beyond

In all of this, I've never really written in depth about the first band I loved and listened to regularly, the only band I loved really between the ages of 8 and 14 (which is, ironically, the only period they weren't active as a band). Madness, I call it Madness.

It's a common thing, I think, to underestimate what you loved as a child, to believe yourself above that now, to hold a residual affection but see your adult crazes as all together more deserving. Not that I've ever stopped liking/loving Madness, but I tend to look at my main musical journey as starting with the Jam and Bob Dylan when I was a teenager.

But the more I think about Madness, and more importantly, the more I listen to them again, the more magnificent they seem to me.

They're in the lineage of great, chart-topping south-eastern rock/pop bands - The Kinks, The Jam and Madness, Blur [yes, there are a lot of others excluded, but I don't think they're quite in the same line ...]

And I've also realised how similar their story and career is to my favourite British band of the last two decades, the Super Furry Animals.

Both are underrated, perhaps because of their consistency, longevity and lightness of touch, both have kept almost exactly the same line-up throughout, both have had an exceptional long run of chart singles (Madness of Top 10s, Furries, conversely, of Top 40s which didn't reach the Top 10), both are seen as singles bands yet released great albums, both have massive live followings, both have a mastery of many styles, yet are often put in one box. Madness, called a ska band, yet really a ska, pop, soul, funk, jazz, rock band. SFA, called a Britpop band but a psych rock, powerpop, soul, folk, techno band.

Madness are/were much more successful than the Furries, it's incredible how many hits they had in the early 80s, and how many of those hits are still well-loved today. There's also far more to them than some would say - there's pathos and sharp lyricism in My Girl and Embarrassment, and pure memorable pop songs in Our House and Baggy Trousers.

But perhaps the most impressive thing about Madness is that their two greatest albums are 30 years apart. Firstly, from 1979, their debut, One Step Beyond, which is probably the definitive Madness package, with so many classic album track character sketches, like Bed and Breakfast Man, In the Middle of the Night and Mummy's Boy. And secondly, from 2009, The Liberty of Folgate, a stunningly accomplished concept album about London, which concedes nothing in terms of ideas, arrangements and, most importantly, melodies, to their younger work. I've been listening to it recently, and there are simply no end of memorable pop tunes on it. NW5 may be up there with My Girl has their most perfectly realised poignant pop song.

Perhaps it is both to Madness's benefit and detriment that they don't repay overly deep analysis, at least from me. I saw them once, at Benicassim in 2006 on a blazingly hot afternoon, and it was joyous, 50,000 people watching a band in their element. Being "fun" and "entertaining" is tied up in their identity, and they've never really strayed that far from that, but there's always a lot more to them than that.

Here would be my Best of Madness:

NW5
Bed and Breakfast Man
Our House
Shut Up
The Sun and the Rain
Michael Caine
Baggy Trousers
Believe Me
Forever Young
Lovestruck
Driving in My Car
In the Middle of the Night
My Girl
My Girl 2
Embarassment
Never Knew Your Name
Wings of a Dove
Tomorrow's Just Another Day
Waiting for the Ghost Train
The Liberty of Norton Folgate