In the age of the single download, Jeff Harford rediscovers the album.
Firstly, it's a black-and-white shot, the palette du jour of the emerging 2 Tone genre, which spiked a cocktail of ska and rocksteady with a generous slug of the punk movement's provocative personality.
Secondly, it shows the band members pressed closely together, stepping in unison, all but one with tightly bunched fists.
There's a tangible sense that some irrepressible energy is about to be let loose on 14 bouncing, crisply choreographed tracks.
Thirdly, these lads are clearly bonkers. Not for nothing were they known as Nutty Boys, the Camden Town collective that would pen a string of charting singles that tapped the same vein of chirpiness that the likes of the Small Faces and Herman's Hermits had tapped before.
Only this time, their overt Britishness is paraded around on the back of distinctly Jamaican-influenced rhythms and melodies.
One Step Beyond ... goes further than acknowledging this debt; it celebrates it.
Pre-album single The Prince is a tribute to Jamaican ska/reggae singer Prince Buster, and Madness (from which the band took its name) is a cover of one of his early hits. The title track is another Prince Buster cover, the B-side to his 1967 hit Al Capone.
Mixed among fast-stepping instrumental-heavy tracks such as Night Boat To Cairo, Tarzan's Nuts and Rockin' In Ab are a handful of pop songs that form the template for the band's later chart success. My Girl, Believe Me, In The Middle Of The Night, Bed And Breakfast Man and Mummy's Boy are all sung by Graham "Suggs" McPherson with cosy, bloke-next-door candour, snapshots of suburban life populated with recognisable faces.
The record-buying public loved this echo of the Kinks' strategy of holding a mirror to their lives. The album spent 78 consecutive weeks in the UK charts.
