Sit Down ’98 Apollo 440 Mix

With an arena tour approaching and no new material ready for release, Mercury wanted a stop-gap release to help promote Best Of sales in the run-up to Christmas. Apollo 440 and The Boilerhouse Boys were commissioned to remix Sit Down, with Apollo 440’s version getting the nod.

Tim was initially reluctant to sanction the release, feeling that a third release of the single would be seen to be ripping off fans and also furthering the stigma that James was a one-song band. He was eventually cajoled, but the choice of b-sides appeared to come from him – a previously unreleased cover of Bowie’s China Girl and acoustic rather than remixed tracks including What For, which had been kept off the Best of as it had originally been released on Sire.

Apart from an acoustic session on Radio 1 Simon Mayo’s show and a buoyant mimed performance on Top of the Pops with Robbie Williams enlisted on air guitar, there was very little promotion of the single.

The video comprised of excerpts from various performances of the song from G-Mex 1990 and 1997 and 1998 festival performances of the song.

The single stormed to number seven in the charts. Mark Goodier described it as such – “Their biggest single to date was Sit Down. This is their second biggest single – Sit Down.”

• China Girl (cover) :1998
• Sit Down :1989
• What For :1988

Open in Spotify

• Sit Down
• Sit Down ’98 Apollo 440 Mix
• Sit Down (Original)
• Sit Down ft. Joe Duddell & String Quartet
• What For