I’m not going to go into how I got my hands on this, but let’s just say it wasn’t a deliberate decision; it literally fell into my lap.
And I had no idea who James was until I heard that hit single I remembered from my youth (“Laid”) and I was like “Oh, these guys.” And I wondered aloud about why I was bothering with them.
But, funnily enough, after listening to it my requisite three times, I found myself enjoying a lot of it – not all of it, mind you, especially the sub-Smiths stuff – and being pleasantly surprised by the songs and the relative diversity of the music.
But Greatest Hits compilations are the worst way to get to like a band – unless they were a bad with strong singles and bad albums – as they are arbitrary and so I have no idea if this really is a good selection of their music, but I’m intrigued, which is more than I thought I would be when I
started listening.
The problem is that this album is sequenced horribly. I have no idea what albums these songs come from – it’s a long story but I only have the disc to listen to, no liner notes – and it’s obvious to me that they are sequenced completely out of chronological order. That would make sense if this was a compilation of songs from a band like AC/DC, whose sound never really changes, but for a band who clearly had a drastic change from sub-Smiths to Baggy – or from Baggy to sub-smiths, I have no idea – it’s a bizarre idea.
And it makes it frustrating. I can’t tell if they were stylistically all over the place (cool) or if they drastically changed their sound over time – could be cool, depending on which direction they went. And I find myself frustrated and annoyed that, in order to find out which James album(s) to check out, I now have to go out and do research I wasn’t planning on doing.
And how many people were in this band? Seriously.
6/10
- “Come Home” (Flood mix) from Gold Mother
- “Sit Down” (June 1989) from Gold Mother (1991 Re-release)
- “She’s a Star” (1997) from Whiplash
- “Laid” (October 1993) from Laid
- “Waltzing Along” (single version) from Whiplash
- “Say Something” from Laid
- “Born of Frustration” from Seven
- “Tomorrow” from Whiplash
- “Destiny Calling” Previously unreleased
- “Out to Get You” from Laid
- “Runaground” Previously unreleased
- “Lose Control” Non-album single
- “Sometimes” from Laid
- “How Was It for You?” from Gold Mother
- “Seven” from Seven
- “Sound” from Seven
- “Ring the Bells” from Seven
- “Hymn from a Village” from James II