When most people think of James, they immediately quote his mid-90s hits like Laid (their biggest hit in the US) or Sit Down. For us 00s kids, the latter is inseparably entwined with a certain Lancastrian comedian and his 2013 “sit-athon” Comic Relief fundraiser and the former most usually associated with the American Pie franchise. The album of the week this week features neither track, nor is it associated with any turn of the century risqué coming-of-age comedies or spoofed athletic feats. Hey Ma, released in 2008 (sitting somewhere in between those two-pop culture moments) is almost the opposite of them actually. And it might just be one of the band’s most genius and genuine, albeit overshadowed albums.
I am biased as always with my possibly overstretched affection for this piece of work, but I am convinced that along with the instrumental inventiveness of this album, almost all of the tracks show James at the top their game. It should come as no surprise really; 22 years of recording, and the anticipation of 7 of those spent separated leading up to the release of this album, went into crafting Hey Ma. A delicious distillation of all that is good about James. The lyrics for instance, are filled with quotable original phrases that ought to be well-worn clichés, like “Don’t take a phone company to tell you life’s pay as you go” (in Waterfall) and “Adore this life, there’s no guarantee” (in Oh My Heart). In classic James fashion, these phrases are thrown into deep topics that are almost hidden or subverted by the uplifting character of the music. Admittedly, the melancholy of songs like Semaphore aren’t hidden but the throughline themes of this album – life and death, war and peace, power and weakness – are mostly delivered to us alongside triumphant brass lines and comforting guitar sounds. As a child continuously listening to this on CD in our family car, the euphoric sound was what drew me in yet I think even then, the heart of the topics wasn’t lost on me. That’s the beauty of James and the excellence of tracks like Hey Ma that use the juxtaposition of topic and music to deliver the “hard to discuss” parts of life in a welcoming manner. In doing so, they emphasise the dichotomies of the topics rather than distract from them. Laid, while not on this album, does this too; it portrays a man with an unhealthy obsession with a potentially abusive woman and yet packages the narrative in a musical context that caused the song to become the theme of Hollywood comedy franchise.
I’m going to stop there. I know that’s not great journalistic writing to say that but it’s for the best. You need to stop reading and go and give it a listen. Just know that I have a thousand more words I could write about the instrumentation/production and how Hey Ma might be one of the greatest examples of how band’s should embrace production techniques in their song writing. If you are looking to contemplate the complexities of life while feeling good about the lack of answers, this is the album for you.
Waxing Lyrical 