No Greatest Hits, that was the rule.

Literally minutes after I finished with Stutter, I had a listen to The Best of James. I know best of’s can only be taken at face value and don’t properly tell you all you need to hear about a band but bloody hell, this sounded like a totally different band! Gone are the folk influences, in thier place are 90′s guitar anthems that fitted in perfectly with the likes of Travis and JJ72 that were the popular during the 90′s.

I had a look around Amazon and there there were a number of ratings for Stutter. One poster did describe the James of the 80′s and 90′s as being two different bands and god is that true!

I like Brit-pop. I was really into it, I still am. It’s grown up now into the likes of Elbow and Snow Patrol, but in the 90′s it was a totally different animal. Blur, Oasis and Plup they are the essence of Brit Pop. The sounds I was hearing on James’ ‘best of’ were more what I was expecting, even if it was a million miles away from The Smiths (of whom they had been compared to). It  made me wonder as to what made the shift from folk to mainstream 90′s guitar pop?

I’m going to have to work my way through the back catalog and see that for myself, but for now I’ll focus on the album that followed the best of… Millionaires.

This album distances the band from two things, Stutter and The Smiths. There are no folky style riffs and the high pitched wailing has gone to be replaced with proper singing. There is a much more ‘poppy’ feel to this album than any others than I have come across on this blog project so far.

The albums starts much better than Stutter, Crash is a great album opener. It’s fun, enegetic and upbeat.

Two songs that stand out for me are Just Like Fred Astaire and We’re Going To Miss You. The latter sounding very similar to something the Stone Roses would have done.

The slower songs such as Strangers and Hello help balance the album out and give it a more ‘completed’ feel. They help show off another side of the band. In fact this album passed on of the great tests I use to determine if an album is great, my sister used the word “That sounds really depressing”. If she ever utters those words, normally the album is great!

One of the highlights of the album is Someone’s Got It in for Me. It sounds very heavily influenced by Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s The Power of love. The guitar and strings mix on this song are absolutely epic and the lyrics are beautiful. It’s got to be one of those album tracks that appears on your iPod when you least expect it and really makes your day – it’s a track that won’t be on the radio, but one you say to your mates “have a listen to this”

I really do like this album, I think it’s a much better attempt that Stutter. I havn’t listened to any other James albums inbetween these two so I don’t know when the shift from folk to pop took place, but from a few random Googles it appears that James are the masters of suprise and can change thier style for each album.

I think that this style really works and it’s a great album. On the Wikipedia article on it there is the following quote from the album review in Q in 1999

‘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.’

However good I think this album is, it really pales in comparison to those listed above – It’s a great album, but I doubt it rates as album you need in your life or one that defines a generation or genre.

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