James Album: “Laid”

Yes, they're underrated. Yes Tim Booth's voice is a gift from God. Yes, it took me 5 years to appreciate the beauty and brilliance of this album, and the astonishingly prolific band that produced it; but, hey, better late than never :-)

From opening strains of "Out To Get You" to the last haunting lyric of "Skindiving", this album is a winner. Reviewers were right to call it one of the best albums of the 90s. There is not a bad track in this collection of 13 songs. Among my favorites are: "Sometimes" (I dare anyone to find me a better chorus in pop music today); "One Of The Three" (Dear God....); "Five-O" (hands down, my favorite song of ALL TIME); P.S. (Stunning...Breathtaking...Beautiful.); Everybody Knows (I just bet they do).

The wonderful thing about James (and the thing I think attracts people to their music) is their uncanny ability to marry perfect melodies with thoughtful, emotionally resonant lyrics. "Laid" is a perfect example of what James have done so well throughout their career. The album hangs together on thematic threads of hope, love, loss and spirituality; but the musical arrangements are anything but saccharine (just listen to the gently loping, yet sinsister guitar and percussion in P.S.). James prove that it is still possible to make intelligent, catchy pop music.

Also recommended: "The Best Of", "Pleased To Meet You"

This is simply one of the best cd's by one of the best bands ever in pop music. Brian Eno said it himeself - when he first heard the song "Sometimes", which resides on this disc, he instantly went on record saying it was the best pop song he had ever heard. This is the guy that has produced U2's finest albums, and this was before he even produced James for the first time!

I saw James live at a small club in Minneapolis, touring to promote this cd, and I was absolutely blown away. The combination of Tim Booth's voice and the amazing musical skills of the rest of the band is really something to see and hear.

The Laid cd is one of my all time favorites - definitely in my "Top 5 Of All Time". The disc flows so well, and each song just builds off the other. "Dream Thrum" and "Five-O" have to be two of the best songs of James' storied career. This cd evokes an atmosphere like no other disc I own. I've purchased this cd for at least five people who have never even heard of James, and they have all been deeply touched by the music. It's that good.

I like to tell people that this is a great disc to throw in your car cd player while driving alone on a clear beautiful night and just immerse yourself in the music.

I don't know what James was doing to get this much inspiration in the early 90's, but whatever it was, it produced one of the greatest pop albums of ALL TIME. Definitely a must have for any serious music fan.

Let's get to the point - this is a wonderful album. In fact, it's very well one of the best albums I've ever heard, and I've heard quite a few. James themselves made no other albums of this calibre. This was their first collaboration with Brian Eno, and their first album after the sudden commercial success of Seven (which isn't nearly as good as Laid) - all the groundwork "laid" (ha! I make joke! funny!) for a landmark. Rather than hooks and pounding rhythms, this album concentrates on restraint and space, and it's all the better for it. The usual rock'n'roll percussion is conspicuously absent from most songs. What's present are eerie keyboard lines that build up out of nowhere and abruptly stop ("Knuckle Too Far"), hushed but persistent guitar lines ("P.S.", "Five-O"), soft acoustic guitars ("Lullaby"), violins ("Dream Thrum", "P.S."), and brief sounds that are almost like echoes but which, upon reflection, have a tendency to burn themselves into the brain ("Skindiving"). The one "loud" song here is also hardly conventional - rather than relying on riffs or basslines, "Sometimes" is a veritable cascade of guitars, much like the rain sung about in the song itself. The only really conventional song is "Low Low Low," whose pub-rock guitar line sounds oddly out of place given the remaining album.

"Sometimes" is probably the most immediate song here, given its indelible imagery. There are others, though. The title track is hilarious and melancholy at the same time, "Skindiving" is five minutes of surreal dreams, keyboard snatches and understated guitars that sounds like nothing on earth, "One of the Three" is an honest and simple meditation on religion and sacrifice. Then there is the album's emotional center. "Five-O" has a main guitar line reminiscent of old Spanish dance music and lyrics torn between fear and hope. Then "P.S." changes the tone to disappointment and features the album's best line ("you liar, you liar, all your words were just dust and moonshine") and a stunning ending (the guitars fade and the violin suddenly comes to prominence). Then there's "Everybody Knows", reminiscent of tango music and probably my favourite song on the album. The verses are those of a simple love song, the chorus is "but everybody knows you're fake, honey, everybody knows you're fake." Woohoo! Despondency masked with irony!

So yes, I am very fond of this album, if you couldn't already tell. Not so concerning the band's other work, but just one great album is more than most bands make already.

I multiplied, added and then subtracted to figure out that it's been 10 whole years since i first listened to this cd. As a matter of fact, cd's weren't even that common those days,

folks were still buying tapes back home!!

This album is kind of tough. You cannot get the feel unless you listen to it (without exaggeration) a couple of years.

... As you grow older, your personal favorites will change. After a lot of back and forths, my solid best became "Sometimes"...(a.k.a Lester Piggot). The song still blows my mind when i listen to it. The lyrics and the music are in a way Yin & Yang - complementary and opposing.

I don't know any other basic way of explaining this one.

To overcome my curiosity, i did some research and found out that Lester Piggot was actually a jockey in Britain in the 1930's.

He was famous for being extremely tall for a rider (5'8") and a housewives' favourite. I remember years ago reading somewhere that the band named this song Lester Piggot because of it's "racing beat".

There's a lot of soul searching in this album.. The guitar rattles all the way from Manchester to overseas, giving you a one two punch in the face. A forceful and effective combination of songs swinging your mood.

Amazingly , it's a joyous piece of English pop which i am not a big fan of...

This is very possibly the greatest album I have ever heard. When I bought it, I had no idea what to expect. The opening track, Out To Get You, was good, but it didn't blow me away. And then Sometimes came on...

Every single song on this album is stunning. Tim Booth is one of rock's greatest singers, and his amazing voice is emphasized here more than on previous James records, to very good effect indeed. And his lyrics--oh my GOD:I here you/I here you/Whispering such gorgeous stories/I hear you/I hear you/Send us off to sleep/You liar/You liar/All your words just dust and moonshine/You liar/You liar/Love to be decieved. I realize that quoting lyrics is fairly pointless--you don't really get the effect until you actually here the song. But these are such STUNNING lyrics, I couldn't resist.

This record is really like nothing I've heard before, even by James themselves. If there's a spectrum of quality somewhere upon which all music could be placed, Laid wouldn't appear anywhere. It's hard to describe my feelings about this, but it's as if it's on a different plane than all other music. It transcends the rating systems used to describe mere human albums. Sheer genius. This record will change your life. I rate it a theoretically infinite number of stars.