MILLIONAIRES REVIEWS

Well Off, They've struck gold. Again by Stuart Maconie, Q Magazine 10.99

They say, although “they” are often wrong, that Morrissey’s 1992 single We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful was a rueful commentary on the career curve of James’s Tim Booth, whom Morrissey famously endorsed intheir early days. If this is the case, then a better title might have been We Hate It When Our Friends Become Mildly Successful In A Bohemian Kind Of Way Then Nearly Split Up Then Become The Anthem Rockers Of Madchester Then Meet Brian Eno Then Nearly Split Up Again And Then Enter The Millennium Doing Really Rather Well Thank You.

Unwieldy but more truthful. Even if Morrissey were right, becoming successful was far from unproblematic. In fact, it took last year’s The Best Of James compilation to alert most people to how formidable a proposition the band have become. Along the way therehave been fiscal, contractual and emotional trials, vacillating moments when their idiosyncratic music has been both briefly trendy and hugely unfashionable, and, of course, countless personnel schisms, the most serious of which was guitarist Larry Gott’s 1995 departure, which fractured the band’s founding triumvirate of Gott, singer Booth and bassist Jim Glennie.

James’s 16-year odyssey has seen their music move from improvisational purism to a glowing, embracing pop Esperanto. 1994’s newboys – drummer Dave Baynton-Power, keyboardist Mark Hunter and guitarist/violinist Saul Davies – have now become central to the band’s sound and ethos; Millionaires emerged from song sketches roughed out between Hunter and Davies at the former’s Leeds home. Happily, all this has been achieved without compromising the group’s individuality. For all that it’s confident, assured and accessible, Millionaires is every inch a James album and, without doubt, the best thing they have ever done.

Saul Davies recently told Q that past diffidence has now been largely banished; the band’s focus and sense of worth galvanised by the chart-topping success of The Best Of James set: “There’s a ‘let’s be the best band in the world’ kind of thinking now.” With this in mind, Millionaires’s opening section is clearly designed as a brazen, bravura assault upon the senses. It brims with confidence. Crash begins with a phonetic, nonsense hook sung by Michael Kulas and producer Brian Eno that ensnares instantly, and the jumpy excitability of Jim Glennie’s bassline echoes Come Home and James’s former flirtations with African high life. Crash would seem to have little to do with J.G. Ballard’s gloomy erotica, though it does make a clever literary nod elsewhere. “Cut the Herman free from the Hesse” is the soaring bridge that ushers in the chorus, simply the title re-iterated in one of the most simple and effective gambits of its kind since She Loves You. Brazen in its primal catchiness, it needs no wordplay or trickiness. It’s ace.

One of the reasons Crash is such a fabulous opener are those big, layered backing vocals. And keen pop students will recognise the distinctive tones of pop music’s most under-rated singer in there. For the good news is that Millionaires reunites James with Brian Eno, the world’s premier musical strategist, free thinker and diarist. It’s six years since Eno facilitated James’s last truly and consistently great studio album, Laid, and though it’s been said he actually produced only half of Millionaires, his signatures are all over it. He’s there in the pure and thrilling harmonies and backing vocals of Crash and last single I Know What I’m Here For. He’s there in the queer, high aerated sounds at the top end of Hello where the very atmosphere seems to be singing like telegraph wires. It’s there in the enormously affecting closing stages of Vervacious, of which more in a moment.

The eight weeks Eno worked on Millionaires has produced some wonderful moments. It may be just “oofle dust” – as Jim Glennie put it to Q – but it’s worth more than any other powder in rock. Well, almost any. Oasis should try it certainly. I Know What I’m Here For – the best Number 1 single we’ve never had – has something of Happy Hardcore in the freaky riff and Baynton-Power’s drumming, recalling the authentic, bug-eyed “I’ve had ten!” vibe of early Haçienda nights. One detects the hand of Eno again in the thrilling vocoder passage. Just Like Fred Astaire is ecstatic in the non-chemical sense. Dealing with an Englishman’s difficulty with expressing love, it fairly glows with elation. “I believe in Hollywood, don’t believe that love must bring despair” sings Booth, subverting the accepted wisdom of rock’s angsty teen poets from Cobain to The Cure.

Strangers has the easy, heart-breaking simplicity of Dylan or Leonard Cohen at their best or perhaps even Antipodean balladeers such as Nick Cave or The Triffids’ late, lamented David McComb. The emotional refrain of “worn down by strangers” is a weary lament everyone in these tetchy, pre-millennial days will empathise with. But juxtaposed with this is the uplifting call of "This is not the end". Beautiful and melancholic without a whiff of sentiment, it’s a majestic few minutes. And in turn, it ushers in the similarly affecting Hello. Spare to the point of emptiness – a brushed snare, a voice intoning sorrowfully “Hello, it’s over” and a few splashes of piano – it’s a fine example of how Ockham’s razor – less is always more – can be used to brilliant effect.

We’re Going To Miss You is an intoxicatingly dark pleasure, à la Black Velvet. A kind of cabalistic charm against one’s enemies, it achieves power without pomposity – a neat trick if you can manage it – and has shades of Wire and even The Smiths in there. “Forgiveness is fine, revenge is more human” deadpans Booth. Shivery stuff. For an album to get eight tracks in without putting a foot or beat wrong is a rare achievement indeed. Some may even find Afro Lover a highlight: it’s certainly catchy and ebullient, Glennie’s querulous bassline hooks the listener and makes it an obvious single. It would represent a career best for Stereophonics but in this exalted company it sounds curiously pat and ordinary.

Another touchstone of the band, Neil Young, is nodded to in Surprise’s wracked magnificence. Virgin listeners should also note a sotto voce aside that recalls Pink Floyd’s Time. Dumb Jam, an awfully self-deprecating title for such a good tune, is reportedly a bit of fun knocked up in rehearsals in New York a few years ago, hence the name. It appears to have been resurrected when Davies realised “this is the stuff other bands would kill for”.

Conceited? It would seem not. Two emotional charges finish the record. Someone’s Got It In For Me is cavernous and Spectoresque and achingly sad. The closer, Verveaceous, was pieced together at an Apple Mac by Baynton-Power from 30-odd minutes of luminous if unfocused fragments. However hard the task was, it was worth it. Beginning in muted, exploratory fashion, it becomes a whirling and radiant free-for-all until, with a whoosh, everything vanishes but one tiny treated voice – Sinead O’Connor actually – sounding not unlike the little droids in the cult sci-fi movie Silent Running. The closing mantra – “sifting throughone thousand years of sound” – is somehow processed by Eno to sound even more delicately human than an untouched voice could. It’s a lovely, serene end to a record alive with emotional peaks.

The word from the band is that they feel Millionaires is not unified in terms of vibes, which is true on one level. It’s a long way from I Know What I’m Here For, which could probably get them up on their feet in Magaluf, to Verveaceous’s awe-inspiring conclusion. But in a way the vibe is one of self-assurance: a sense that all things are possible. While musically different, a similar burning sense of an idea whose time has come runs through Parklife, Urban Hymns, Everything Must Go, OK Computer and What’s The Story (Morning Glory). These are the albums that, if there’s any justice, Millionaires will be cited alongside when the great British rock records of this decade are counted. Who knows what Morrissey will think?

The Definitive Review by Dave Brown, Change of Scenery 8.99

So finally we have it, a year later than promised, but they've fmally made it. We may have heard half of it on tour last December and played the bootlegs to death, but this is the real thing - is this going to be album that makes James into the millionaires they ironically declare in the title or send them back into the abyss with Mercury dropping them like a stone? You're probably reading the wrong publication for an objcetive answcr but here goes... ..

Album opener "Crash" is a high-octane listing of seemingly random words in the verse leading to a chorus of "someone got hurt, someone got high, someone got left behind the lines", prefaced by a bout of woo-hoo's, presumably from Michael. "Crash" is a very powerful way to start the album and a sign of things to come.

Next song is" Just Like Fred Astaire", which as we speak may be James' first number one single or another relative chart disappointment. Backed with a killer synth hook from Mark, which takes some getting used to, Tim launches into a wandering journey describing the symptoms of a new-found love dismissing the cynics sniping that love is "just a disease". Truly magical stuff and a must for all the romantics out there - play this as the James song at your wedding.

"I Know What I'm Here For" follows on and seems a little out of place on this LP - it still sounds a disappointing take on a song that was for many the highlight of the new songs on the December tour.

Following on is "Shooting My Mouth Off". which was played in December under the title of Real World Jam. Again, this is a love song, Tim stating how the relationship he is now in is different from anything else before it and hoping that he isn't just carried away on the whole thing. A very restrained performance by the rest of the band simply adds to its beauty - one of my personal favourites on the album.

"We're Going To Miss You" is the fifth track on the LP - described by Tim as a "spell of protection" to ward off all who wish to do evil to the band. Adrian and Saul playas a two-man orchestra over the chorus whcrc Tim repeats the mantra "there's a mirror with your name on, singing we're going to miss you when you've gone" The verse is very dark, brooding and threatening in contrast to the seemingly happy chorus.

The mood slows down for the next track "Strangers" which is a lament to loneliness and being used by people around you who are there simply for the ride and not to support you in achieving what you aim for and the difficulties in changing your environment. The chorus is a very simple message "worn down by strangers, all you need's a friend" and the music is again very understated.

The understatement goes further with "Hello" where Tim's accompaniment is mainly a very sparse piano whilst he half whispers half sings to an unnamed woman about how they should get together.

In complete contrast, " Afro Lover" is the album's big pop moment. Produced by Faithless, this has to be a serious contender for the third single with its chantable "everybody wants to be happy, everybody wants the same thing" and the upbeat musical accompaniment which just strengthens that message. It might upset the James purists slightly, but this is the type of song James need to try and fmally shake the Sit Down albatross that has been hanglng round the necks for far too long and stretch past their loyal fanbase to reach the mass market.

"Surprise" follows and comes across all swaggering with Tim and Michael's vocals intertwining across the chorus. Sadly, some of the better lines lyrically have been dropped for the final recording and a few of the lines do sound a little awkward, but this does not distract from the power of the song.

A surprise inclusion on the LP is "Dumb Jam" played live in 1994 on a couple of US dates and which may be kmown to you as Where Did You Go? on the Unreleased tape. This has been resurrected for this LP and clocking in at just over two minutes is a frenetic up-tempo romp through male and female behaviour in relationships. Another personal favourite of mine.

A highlight of the recent live shows "Someone's Got It In For Me" just about fails to be the showstopping oh-my-god blockbuster it has been at the shows, a strange-sounding vocal arrangement slightly takes the edge off Tim's desperate portrayal of a paranoid victim surveying the wreckage of his dreams and the environment around him, The chorus still maintains its epic feel, Michael and Tim's voices once again complementing each other perfectly.

The real disappointment on the album is the closing track "Vervacious", Those who heard this on the December tour would expect an overblown epic-sounding number, swooping and diving between quiet introspective moments and full-on improvisation. Sadly, the whole thing is very understated and at the moment where you expect the whole thing to take off and carry you away for the last minute and a half of the album, all we get is a treated version of Sinead O'Connor singing the opening verse. A bizarre end to the album and really quite unnecessary.

So overall impressions? Millionaires is an album where James play to their strengths, there are six or seven potential singles that could sit alongside the tracks on the 'Best of' and generate the same reaction from a gig crowd. Slightly disappointing is the lack of real experimentation that characterised Whiplash and Wah Wah and there is a sense that it might be a little over-produced in striving for perfection.

I have my own doubts on whether Millionaires will be the massive seller that everyone is hoping that it will be. That's not to detract from what is an excellent album that can stand proud next to all the other James albums and I'm sure the sales figures will reflect that. However there is this nagging doubt that James had their chance at being the biggest band in Britain in 1992 and didn't grab it and even an album of this quality won't recreate that chance. I hope I'm wrong.

Music 365 Track-by-Track Preview 30.7.99

In the 17 years since they formed in Manchester, JAMES' folk-tinged anthemic pop has evolved to establish them as one of the most successful and durable UK bands of the '90s. Now, following the success of 1997's 'Whiplash' studio set and last year's 'Best Of...' career retrospective comes their tenth album 'Millionaires', released through Fontana in September. Here, ANDREW MUELLER runs you through an exclusive advance preview of the new album's dozen tracks.

'CRASH' 

The opening track is as stereotypical a James song as could be imagined: a beat that might have been laid down with Tim Booth's wasp-in-shirt dancing in mind and an immovably memorable and instantly hummable chorus. From the off, this is an album by a James deciding to give the experimental noodling a miss and play to their strengths.

'FRED ASTAIRE' 

A slower, more sombre variation on the above theme, allowing Booth to deploy the natural grace and agility of the late song-and-dance man as a metaphor for the early stages of love. Weirdly, he just about gets away with it.

'I KNOW WHAT I'M HERE FOR' 

Set to be the first single. Not by any means the first James song to weld hyperactively wordy verses with a languid, anthemic chorus, and as the rest of this album goes on to demonstrate, not the last. 'I Know What I'm Here For', from the title on, suggests that before making this album, James took a long hard look at the sales figures of their greatest hits package, compared them with the figures of the rather less accessible albums preceding it and had a major epiphany as regards the buttered side of their bread.

'SHOOTING MY MOUTH OFF' 

A sparingly arranged, modest and rather affecting ballad that might have been even better had it resisted the temptation to erupt into the big all-join-hands chorus. Again, it has an instant appeal which suggests that James made this album with a view to touring the world with it for a very long time indeed.

'WE'RE GOING TO MISS YOU' 

With the album's pattern well and truly established now, this is another song that begins all whispered and claustrophobic and ends with a triumphantly declaiming chorus begging to be reworked as a terrace anthem.

'STRANGERS' 

As close as 'Millionaires' gets to the introspective, pastoral whimsy that characterised 'Laid' and parts of 'Whiplash'. Bears a startling resemblance to the solo outings of former Go-Between Robert Forster, which is obviously no bad thing.

'HELLO' 

The quietest moment and quite possibly the highlight of the album. Helped along by little more than barely-played piano and barely hit drums, Booth mutters a disconsolate goodbye to someone or something. On this evidence, it sounds like he was given the elbow and a copy of Nick Cave's 'The Boatman's Call' at around the same time.

'AFRO LOVER' 

Unapologetically up-tempo, punctuated throughout by utterly abandoned hand-clapping, resembling something like a search for the middle ground between Pet Shop Boys' 'Left To My Own Devices' and Patrick Hernandez' 'Born To Be Alive', but some way more palatable than that sounds.

'SURPRISE' 

A standard-issue lighter-waving ballad, subverted by a neatly discordant lyric. Booth repeatedly bellows "Still not satisfied" as the music swells to a crescendo that, in sharp contrast, sounds almost indecently pleased with itself.

'DUMB JAM' 

Bass-heavy and not one of James' more tuneful moments, with a lyric that seems concerned with women and guns. Sounds oddly unfinished, and like all concerned are making it up as they go along (Possible clue in title? - Ed).

'SOMEONE'S GOT IT IN FOR ME' 

An under-stated - by James' standards at least - string-laden ballad of disappointment with pretty much everyone and everything, not least the song's narrator. A luxuriant wallow in self-pity.

'VERVACIOUS' 

The title is something of a mystery: 'Vervacious' bears little resemblance to the work of Wigan's finest. It also bears little resemblance to most of what's gone before - it's a slight, humble trundle, and a startlingly downbeat note on which to end the album.

NME 10.99 by Soibahn Grogan

The problems of mediocrity face all who encounter James. Do you pity or scorn them? Accept or ignore them? Essentially, do you put up with yet another album that sounds identical to all the others just because, bless their souls, they mean well and always have nice choruses and that Tim Booth dances so nicely, though he looks like he could do with a hearty meal, the poor lad?

Well, do you? Because here's another and, let's face it, you know exactly how it's going to sound from start to unspectacular finish. Despite an impressively prolific 16-year career, James remain eternal, tedious underachievers. When the endless millennium polls are taken for Best Band, they'll be nowhere to be seen. Because, though 'Sit Down' will always have a place on every student jukebox, James just don't matter.

That's because everything here could have been written by any old band playing any old toilet venue in any city in Britain. While fellow '80s Mancunians The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and The Smiths wrote songs that were unique, recognisable and inspiring, James could never muster that something special. Their trademark became the ordinary, the bland, the - yawn - reliability of each album.

And, unfortunately, this is an entirely adequate, depressingly typical example. Sounding forever like a poor man's REM or The Smiths without the misfit intelligence and charm, Brian Eno produces and there's barely noticeable guest appearances from Sinead O'Connor and Jamie Catto of Faithless. Apart from a token acknowledgement of dance music in the Electronic briskness of 'I Know What I'm Here For', the rest is a load of soulless love songs like new single 'Just Like Fred Astaire'. Frankly, Tim Booth couldn't sound more bored and insincere if he sang through a huge smirk while studying his fingernails.

Pretend they'd had the dignity to call it a day after the respectable success of last year's 'Greatest Hits' album and act as if this never happened. Because unsurprisingly, it's a 4/10. Not bad, not good, just deathly, endlessly average.

Top Magazine 10.99 4/5

Full marks to JAMES. First spotted on Factory Records back in 83, for a long while their only fan appeared to be Morrissey. Even Rough Trade told them their's was "minority music with no commercial appeal." During the 90s, it was a question of "sit down and shut up" as they veered a giddy path via Madchester through Britpop and beyond. After last year's mega-selling hits collection, Millionaires is James best LP thus far. Majestic stadium arousers "We're Going To Miss You" stride beside the spiralling grandeur of "Just Like Fred Astaire" before the schizophonics tone down with the tender strum of "Strangers" and the Joy Division spooks of "Vervaceous" with backing vocals courtesy of Sinead O'Connor. Then Faithless' Jamie Catto tacks on to the anti-war anthem "Afro Lover". Mozzer may have been right all along.

Front November 1999 4 1/2 out of 5

They may be mates of Front, but if this album wasn't top tippity notch, we would be morally and legally obliged to inform you lot forthwith. Perhaps not surprisingly, though, it is. Bursting with inventiveness, soaring with melody, oozing with charm, Booth and the boys have pulled their biggest album rabbit out of the hat since Laid. Check out their new single Just Like Fred Astaire for proof. They may not have fashioned cathedrals of sound with this album, but they've gone one better - they've knocked up a log cabin of loveliness for each and every one of us.

Serial Killer Monkeys

James. Who, you say? Only one of the most versatile bands never to make a name for themselves in the United States, that's who. Music buffs might remember James scoring a hit with "Laid" back in 1994 and the subsequent single from the same album, "Say Something".

The basic stats are: They're British, they're brooding, and no, there's not a soul in the band named 'James'. Their latest release, "Millionaires", is the first with producer Brian Eno on board since the aforementioned "Laid" in 1994, though it's a bit hard to tell. Taking a drastic turn from that album, "Millionaires" boasts something "Laid" never could - immediate listenability. The silent, almost creepy noise inherent in that previous album in nowhere, and I mean nowhere, to be found in "Millionaires".

The disc opens up with a sound the listener would do well to get used to - frontman Tim Booth going toe to toe on vocals with his band of merry men. "Crash" is the song, but it does anything but that. The song is a journey of monstrous pop rock proportions that flits across the soundscape like a gospel choir after an all night Pixy Stik binge.

An opening of explosions succeeded by a follow-up of grand emotion. The single "Just Like Fred Astaire" boasts a repeating piano loop that will certainly stick to the average synapses for at least a week. A sweeping love song built specifically for the radio, this one strums and dreams its way through mystery, love, and joy.

The other pre-release single is "I Know What I'm Here For", a steadily thumping showcase of harmony broken up by an almost goofy keyboard riff. It has a sound like a DJ who is terribly devoted to his music, but who is just so happy that he wants to share it with the world.

It's true. Not much of the James of days past remains on "Millionaires". This only becomes more apparent with "Afro Lover" and "Shooting My Mouth Off". The former finds James experimenting with such technologies as drum loops and clapping hands, while the latter teases the listener to turn up the volume before blowing the speakers with a six string assault.

The obvious choice for a third single is "We're Going to Miss You". If the early 90s James rears its head anywhere, it's in the verses to this song. But Tim Booth doesn't let that last long before calling some auxiliary vocals from the other six (!) members of his band for a chorus of epic proportions. Next to "Fred Astaire", this is the one that will keep you up at night, happily singing in your bed. Other highlights are "Hello" and "Surprise", which prove yet further that James was out to have some fun with this one. They pulled out all the stops for this one. Why, they'd even go so far as to record a collaborative piece with Sinead O'Connor! Oh wait, they did that...

The album closes out with "Vervaceous", a teaming with everyone's favorite bald Irish protest singer. This one starts out much like "We're Going to Miss You". It lulls about for just a bit before opening up a horizon of sound. If any song could represent the glory of a sunset, this would be it. And as the chaos dies down, in comes O'Connor's trademark china doll vocals.

In the end, a James fan wouldn't know what he just finished listening to at this point, but this band has come a long way since the early 80s, and "Millionaires" is just another step in that evolution.

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