Although most of the ska revivalist bands to emerge at the tail end of the 1970s sprang out of the Coventry-based 2 Tone Records, run by The Specials’ chief songwriter Jerry Dammers, the London-based Madness wound up being one of the genre’s most important bands, chalking up no fewer than eight Top 10 albums and a series of hit singles, including the chart-topping ‘House of Fun’.
They followed their 1979 debut LP One Step Beyond just a year later with 1980’s Absolutely, which includes one of their biggest hits in ‘Baggy Trousers’.