Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/21/theres-a-new-james-album-com.html
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this band was (is) so great – and you’re right, their stuff beyond their hits is even better. “Sometimes” might be my favorite.
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Laid is certainly one of those songs to crank up in the car. It’s a great song. I have been told the album is really good and should probably checked it out back in they day. Lots of 90s albums I grew to love through discovery and repetition that I am not sure would click with me today.
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That song is giddily on my genderfuck mix… even if more because of the video than the lyrics. 
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Do people in the UK still sit on the floor at indie-discos for “Sit Down”? That was always weird. Awesome song, tho.
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I guess I will have to find out who this James is.
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I got turned on to James sometime after “Born of Frustration” was on the radio (I didn’t like it at all then, and it’s still one of my least-favorite of their songs.) “Gold Mother” was my jam until “Laid” came out, and I darn near wore the tracks off both CDs. “Sit Down” still gets me going.
But over the years, their output has been… uneven, to the point where I stopped paying much attention. So when “La Petite Mort” came out in 2014, I barely noticed… until about six months ago, when I suddenly went on a James binge and rediscovered it. OMG - how did I miss it the first time around? It has a worthy successor to “Laid” in “Curse Curse” (the first verse even nods to the lyrics of the earlier song); it has a very funny attempted-seduction song in "Frozen Britain (“Emily come to bed / Make a boy out of me”), and it has two songs that, if they don’t make you cry, I don’t want to know you: “All I’m Saying” and “Moving On”.
James have been releasing the singles from the new album one at a time on YouTube, and so far I’m… OK with this album. But I heartily recommend anybody who ever liked James to go check out “La Petite Mort”.
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HOLY WOW! That is a super swell video!
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My absolute favorite James video ever:
I love this animator so much and it’s all vaguely furry.
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We sit on the floor everywhere for that song.
Well, I do. It can be awkward.
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Hands-down the best live band I’ve ever seen.
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Saw them at the WOMAD festival many years ago, right after Crowded House, and I’ve never forgotten the one-two punch of two of the best live performances I’ve ever seen.
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I’m still bitter that I missed a surprise performance by them in Oporto, by one lousy week, four years ago. It was at the city’s train station. Small, intimate space. It would have been amazing.
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That was cool.
That animator (Péter Vácz) also made this wonderful film:
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Which WOMAD venue was that? I was at the one in Los Angeles*; unfortunately that was about a month before I discovered James. Crowded House finished up; we had a choice of bands to watch next; James were performing “Born of Frustration” (which I found quite irritating), and so we watched somebody else - I’ve forgotten whom. I’ve regretted that for YEARS.
Fortunately I’ve had the chance to see them a few times in the decades since - my favorite was at the Anaheim House of Blues on their “farewell” tour in 2008 - but I’ve always wished I could have overcome my dislike of the “woo-woo-woo-woo / woo-woo-woo-woo-woo woo!”
*On the CSU Dominguez Hills campus, I think?
It was, for some reason, in a big field near Buckeye Lake, in rural Ohio. I remember seeing James, Crowded House, PM Dawn, Lenny Kravitz, Stereo MC’s, and of course Peter Gabriel. Incredible show and event but not the best location for it.
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I saw them in the 90s in a medium-sized venue, with Tim Booth in a neck brace. They still put on quite a good show. (I can’t remember if Matthew Sweet opened for them or just played at the same venue a week or two after…I think it was the latter).
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I LOVE Laid, one of my all-time favorite albums. Watching the video you posted: “But she only sings when she’s on top…” WTF? That’s not how I remember that lyric! #SanitizedForYourSafety
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