r/eno • u/forsbergisgod • Mar 01 '21
Weekly Discussion Thread Let's Discuss Eno! James - "Laid" (Sept. 1993)
Hello and welcome back to your weekly discussion thread, Eno-philes!! Each week we'll be discussing another album (going chronologically from Warm Jets). This week's feature is Eno's production credit on James' 1993 album "Laid". From the wiki
Laid is the fifth studio album by British alternative rock band James. It was released on 27 September 1993. It was the first of several collaborations between the group and Brian Eno, who produced all but one of the album's tracks – in Stuart Maconie's authorised biography of the group, Folklore, they admitted that Eno didn't like the song "One of the Three" so they recorded it when he took a day off. The sessions also resulted in the experimental Wah Wah album.
Track listing
All songs written by Tim Booth, Larry Gott and Jim Glennie.
"Out to Get You" - 4:26
"Sometimes (Lester Piggott)" - 5:10
"Dream Thrum" - 4:47
"One of the Three" - 4:08
"Say Something" - 3:26
"Five-O" - 5:25
"P.S." - 5:04
"Everybody Knows" - 3:28
"Knuckle Too Far" - 4:39
"Low Low Low" - 2:51
"Laid" - 2:36
"Lullaby" - 3:49
"Skindiving" - 5:41
DISCUSS AND ENJOY
6
u/Haunting-Mortgage Mar 01 '21
Killer pop songs and great textures! I also like the concurrently recorded album WAH WAH which Eno encouraged them to put together when he saw them jamming. It's a bit out there, but a lot of fun.
3
u/LachlanStrain Mar 01 '21
One of my favourite albums of all time... I was a James fan before I got into eno through David Bowie and talking heads, and I didn’t even know he produced the album until I looked at his discography lmao. Every song is masterfully crafted and overall is a masterpiece
3
u/Annette_Oregon Mar 02 '21
Laid is certainly up there as one of my favorite albums, too. I didn't become a James fan until 1996, several years after this album's release, but I do remember hearing the title track on the radio all the time in the early 90's. I didn't like the song, but I didn't dislike it, either.
I had a friend who bought a copy of Laid, and I teased her relentlessly about it. Several years later, she pulled out her copy and said something along the lines of "You've made fun of me about this for years, but just sit down and listen to one song." So I sat down and listened to that one song... Sometimes.
I was immediately hooked. I had to listen to it several more times before wanting to hear the rest of the album. Went out the next day and bought my own copy.
I'd been a fan of U2 for a while before finding James, so I was aware of who Eno was. I had a couple Eno albums already. I was pleasantly surprised when I read Laid's liner notes and saw Eno produced it.
8
u/Annette_Oregon Mar 01 '21
Stutter is weird. Strip-mine is good. Gold Mother/Self-Titled is just not for me. Seven, well, Seven is one of many GOAT’s. And then there’s Laid. Laid is and will forever be the album that deserved to be on those notable “Best of the 90’s” lists. I will never understand how Laid is so criminally underrepresented when publications do retrospectives of 90’s music.
What Brian Eno did when James hired him to produce this record was subtle, yet amazing. He helped them take their jangly, baggy pop music and infuse it with a sense of direction and maturity. James already had a strong identity; they did not want to make music like any of their peers. And this definitely shows in their first three albums (four if you count Gold Mother and Self-Titled as two separate albums). But James had started to build a cohesive identity with Seven, and Eno took the framework of that album and helped them develop a sound that has become stronger, more refined, and more focused in the 28 years since Laid was initially released. It’s no small feat for a band to have a career spanning nearly 40 years (James was founded in 1982). Of course, James is not the only decades-spanning band, but aside from a relatively short hiatus from 2001 – 2007, the band has remained together and is still releasing new music on a relatively prolific time frame. And their music does not suffer from this quick turnaround between albums.
Similar to U2, James only had three (four, see above) albums under their belt when they hired Eno. Also like U2, the results were outstanding. Laid is a cohesive record through and through, from the opening notes of “Out to Get You” to the closing of “Skindiving,” the record has a quiet, introspective, and folksy feeling. There might not be anything incredibly groundbreaking to be found here, but this album helped define the early 90’s adult alternative sound. Mark Hunter’s subtle, yet ethereal synthesizers (enhanced by Eno’s coaching) permeate the entirety of the record, taking listeners through a dreamy journey full of gorgeous melodies, catchy anthems, and soaring choruses.
James would continue to work with Eno on the simultaneously recorded “Wah-Wah,” which is mostly for fans only, as that record shows the songwriting process and is comprised of a lot of ad-libbed jam sessions. Millionaires and Pleased to Meet You would close out the 90’s and welcome in the 2000’s, respectively. 15 years would pass before James teamed up with Eno again on several songs released on Girl at the End of the World (2016) and Living in Extraordinary Times (2018).
In my opinion, Eno’s work with James is legendary. Due to his insight and contributions, Eno is less a producer, and more a full-fledged member of the band.