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Albums:

Millionaires

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Millionaires, a 1999 Studio Album by James.

Summary

Released 25 years ago, Millionaires is the 8th studio album from James, and again produced by Brian Eno. Singles from the album included I Know What I’m Here For, We’re Going to Miss You, and Just Like Fred Astaire.

Track List

Crash / Just Like Fred Astaire / I Know What I’m Here For / Shooting My Mouth Off / We’re Going to Miss You / Strangers / Hello / Afro Lover / Surprise / Dumb Jam / Someone’s Got It In For Me / Vervaceous

Bonus tracks included with original release:

I Know What I’m Here For (Live at the Guildford Festival) / Crash (Live at the Guilford Festival) / Destiny Calling (Live at T in the Park) / Someone’s Got It In For Me (Live at the Guildford Festival) / Just Like Fred Astaire (Live at the Lighthouse, Glasgow) / I Know What I’m Here For (Video only) / Just Like Fred Astaire (Video only)

 

Details

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Release Name: Millionaires
Artist Name: James
Release Date: 11th October 1999
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: CAS – 546 386-4, CD 546 386-2, 2CD 546 789-2

The masterplan was to follow The Best Of with a new album before the end of 1998. Whilst touring with The Best Of, James already had the seeds of twenty songs started by Saul at his house in Scotland, taken to Mark’s in Leeds for further work and then presented to the rest of the band.

The first public airing of this new material was at Oxford Brookes University, host to James Glastonbury warm-up show in June where Surprise and I Know What I’m Here For were unveiled. By this time, the album was already behind schedule and the projected release had been put back until early 1999.

The arena tour in December 1998 saw seven tracks from the Millionaires sessions unveiled – Surprise, I Know What I’m Here For, Fred Astaire, Confusion, I Defeat, We’re Going To Miss You, Vervaceous and Shooting My Mouth Off. Indications were now that the album was almost finished with a final studio session pencilled in before Christmas with Steve Osborne to rerecord Fred Astaire and finish off a couple of other tracks. The bands were still hoping to release the album in April 1999 at this stage.

Unhappy with the mixes, Millionaires was not finally completed until May 1999, the band surviving a scare when some of the digital master tapes appeared to have been wiped but were fortunately recovered. Saul explained the delay as “there’s a let’s be the best band in the world feeling about it now.”

With the album complete, James then had to contend with the record company’s wish for the release not to coincide with the label’s other major artist Texas whose album was due in June. The annual lull in sales in the summer and the high expectations for the album saw October pencilled in finally as the release date, a whole year behind the original schedule.

I Know What I’m Here For was released as the first single in July in between triumphant performances at T In The Park and Guildford Festival, both of which were to provide live tracks for the bonus CD given away with initial copies of the album.  Despite the Radio 1 A-listing for the single and the band’s most frequent rotation on MTV to date, the single peaked at a rather disappointing number 22.

The second single Just Like Fred Astaire followed on October 4, a week before the album.  Hopes of a major hit single were dashed when the single entered the charts at a rather disappointing 14.

Millionaires followed the week after with the aforementioned bonus live CD of tracks from T In The Park, Guildford Festival and an industry-only acoustic show at the Glasgow Lighthouse club plus the CD-ROM videos of the two singles.  The band played two low-key gigs at Norwich UEA and London Embassy Rooms and headlined BBC2’s Later With Jools show.  Mercury arranged special playback nights at record shops and nightclubs with giveaways and competitions to promote the album.

Disappointingly, the album only sold 34,000 copies in the first week, well short of displacing Shania Twain from the top of the charts.

Press reaction to the album was again mixed, it was either loved or loathed. Q described the album as one of the best of the 90s and Melody Maker bemoaned the fact that the success of the Best Of meant that James would be around forever. The main criticism appeared to be that the album was overproduced in the quest for perfection, losing some of the band’s intimacy in the process.

The arena tour in December 1999 failed to revive the album’s fortunes, the third single, a rerecorded We’re Going To Miss You was released at the end of the tour and stumbled to number 48, James worst chart placing for a single since 1989.  By the time the band played Shepherds Bush in May 2000, only four Millionaires tracks remained in the setlist and only one was played at the Chelmsford V2000 show.

The album was released for the first time on vinyl in 2017. Read about the 2017 reissue on EvenTheStars.

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Millionaires (Europe)

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Millionaires (Import, Europe), a 1999 Album by James.

Summary

European version of the album excluding Shooting My Mouth Off.

Track List

Crash / Just Like Fred Astaire / I Know What I’m Here For / We’re Going To Miss You / Strangers / Hello / Afro Lover / Surprise / Dumb Jam / Someone’s Got It In For Me / Vervaceous

Details

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Release Name: Millionaires (Import, Europe)
Artist Name:
Release Date: 11th October 1999
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: 546-524-2

European version of the album excluding Shooting My Mouth Off.

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Millionaires (Singapore)

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Millionaires (Import, Singapore), a 1999 Album by James.

Summary

Singapore version of the album excluding Shooting My Mouth Off with alternative sleeve because of the issue with pigs in a Muslim country.

Track List

Crash / Just Like Fred Astaire / I Know What I’m Here For / We’re Going To Miss You / Strangers / Hello / Afro Lover / Surprise / Dumb Jam / Someone’s Got It In For Me / Vervaceous

Details

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Release Name: Millionaires (Import, Singapore)
Artist Name:
Release Date: 11th October 1999
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: 546-524-2

Singapore version of the album excluding Shooting My Mouth Off with alternative sleeve because of the issue with pigs in a Muslim country.

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The Best Of (USA)

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The Best Of (USA, Import), a 1998 Album by James.

Summary

US version of The Best Of.

Track List

Come Home (Flood mix) / Sit Down / She’s A Star / Laid / Waltzing Along (single version) / Say Something / Born of Frustration / Tomorrow / Destiny Calling / Out to Get You / Runaground / Lose Control / Sometimes / How Was It for You? / Seven / Sound / Ring The Bells / Hymn From A Village

Details

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Release Name: The Best Of (USA, Import)
Artist Name:
Release Date: 1st October 1998
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: 314 536 898-2

US version of The Best Of.

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The Best Of / Unhinged

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The Best Of / Unhinged, a 1998 Compilation Album by James.

Summary

With fourteen hit singles to date, a Best Of compilation was inevitable. The release, from 26 years ago, also included a limited edition with a second live disc, titled Unhinged.

Track List

Come Home (Flood mix) / Sit Down / She’s A Star / Laid / Waltzing Along (single version) / Say Something / Born of Frustration / Tomorrow / Destiny Calling / Out to Get You / Runaground / Lose Control / Sometimes / How Was It for You? / Seven / Sound / Ring The Bells / Hymn From A Village

Unhinged (second bonus live disc) included:

Runaground / Ring the Bells / Out To Get You / Johnny Yen / Lose Control / Laid / Sound

Details

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Release Name: The Best Of / Unhinged
Artist Name: James
Release Date: 23rd March 1998
Format: Compilation Album
Catalogue: CAS – 536 898-4, CD 536 898-2, 2CD 558 173-2

With fourteen hit singles under their belts, a Best Of compilation was inevitable – a guaranteed hit album, minimum outlay and the chance for the band to pay off some of their debt to Mercury and secure the funds to make the next album. The band made all the noises about being surprised at the number of hit singles they’d had and given that, a Best of seemed the right thing to do, when there was no reason at all for them to justify it.

To go alongside the fourteen hits, James recorded two new tracks Destiny Calling and Runaground to be released as singles and added live favourite Out To Get You from the Laid LP and Hymn From A Village from the 1985 James II EP, which had been remastered for the Palatine Factory Records retrospective. Given the acrimonious end to the relationship between the band and Sire Records, there were no tracks from either the Stutter or Strip Mine albums.

As a bonus for early purchasers of the album, James played a secret industry-only acoustic show at London’s Whitfield Street Studios in January 1998, which was recorded for inclusion on a second “Unhinged” CD.

Destiny Calling was released a week before the Best Of in March and went to number 17 in the charts. The album release a week later saw a full-on promotional blitz by James – radio sessions for GLR, Virgin FM, XFM and Radio 1, an instore gig at London’s Virgin Megastore and a show for Manchester’s Key 103 on a barge in the Castlefields complex.

The promotional barrage worked – the album went straight to number 1, even beating the Titanic soundtrack in Oscar week. It dropped to number 2 the following week, selling only a few hundred copies less than Pulp’s new album. It remained in the Top 10 for over ten weeks and spent exactly a year in the Top 75.

Press coverage of the Best Of was almost universally favourable. Q and most of the broadsheet newspapers ran features and articles on the band recognising the longevity, quality and consistency of the band. There was the odd dissenting voice, primarily embittered hacks at Melody Maker, but they could not dampen the feeling that James were finally getting the recognition and the appreciation that they deserved.

A six-date mini-tour followed the album release, which was primarily a Greatest Hits set and a celebration of the band’s success both for them and the fans. A headline slot at the Fleadh and high placings on the bill at Glastonbury and the V98 festivals followed in the summer.

Runaground was released as a single at the end of May. Promotional activities were restricted as Tim was in the middle of his stint acting in Saved at the Bolton Octagon. The band’s high expectations for the single proved ill-founded as it struggled to number 29 in its first week and fell sharply.

To push Best Of sales further in the period leading up to Christmas, James announced an arena tour for December including venues such as Manchester Nynex, Wembley Arena, Birmingham NEC and Glasgow SECC – 10,000+ capacity venues filled by many of those to whom the Best Of had converted or reintroduced to the band. A remix of Sit Down by Apollo 440 was released to coincide with the tour and reached number 7, the band’s highest placed single since the same song hit number 2 in 1991.

The Best Of achieved exactly what it had set out to do, taking James back to a large audience, reminding them of how many great singles the band had produced over the years and introducing a new audience to the band.

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Tomorrow (Canada)

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Tomorrow (Import, Canada), a 1997 Album by James.

Summary

Two-disc Canadian only compilation of b-sides, live tracks and remixes from the UK She’s A Star and Tomorrow singles

Track List

Tomorrow / Gone Too Far / Honest Pleasure / All One To Me / Fishknives / Come Home / Tomorrow / She’s A Star / Greenpeace / Johnny Yen

Details

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Release Name: Tomorrow (Import, Canada)
Artist Name:
Release Date: 21st April 1997
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: 314 575 543-2

Two-disc Canadian only compilation of b-sides, live tracks and remixes from the UK She’s A Star and Tomorrow singles

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Whiplash

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Whiplash, a 1997 Studio Album by James.

Summary

After a long gap during which the band dealt with a number of personal and financial issues, they returned with Whiplash. It was released 27 years ago and featured a new, more electronic sound and delivered top twenty hits for James, including Tomorrow and She’s A Star.

Track List

Tomorrow / Lost A Friend / Waltzing Along / She’s a Star / Greenpeace / Go to the Bank / Play Dead / Avalanche / Homeboy / Watering Hole / Blue Pastures

Bonus tracks included with 1991 reissue:

Lost a Friend (live) / Greenpeace (live) / Homeboy (live) / Waltzing Along (Flytronix Mix)

 

Details

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Release Name: Whiplash
Artist Name: James
Release Date: 24th February 1997
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: LP – 534 354-1, CAS 534 354-4, CD 534 354-2; CD 548 788-2 (reissue)

Whiplash was an album two years in the making. The basic seeds of many of the songs came from sound-check jams during the 1994 US tour and a couple of weeks spent in a large barn close to Woodstock where James played at the anniversary festival in August.

The band congregated at Westside Studios in March 1995 with Brian Eno. Eno’s book “A Year With Swollen Appendices” documents these sessions – click on the link above to view excerpts of the diaries.

Following these sessions, the band did not even get together in the same room for six months. When they did finally get together on what became known as “Black Thursday” – November 16 1995, all hell broke loose. Larry announced that he was leaving the band to save his marriage. A tax bill for the past five years arrived which the band thought was covered. And Tim told the band that he was going to New York to record an album with Angelo Badalamenti.

James survived. Western Hotels used Born of Frustration for a TV commercial in the States which cleared the tax bill. An old school friend of Saul’s, Adrian Oxaal, previously of Sharkboy, was drafted in to replace Larry.

The band, minus Tim, convened at Dave’s house in North Wales where he had built his home studio, dubbed Cafe Mullet (apparently because Dave looks like a fish) to work on the tracks from the Westside sessions. Tim kept in touch with the band’s progress, sending contributions from New York. Slowly but surely, Whiplash fell into place, the electronic influences of the dance music many of the band were increasingly interested in more prominent than ever before.

On Tim’s return, the final vocal tracks were put in place and Stephen Hague was drafted in to add his “pop Midas touch” to the tracks with Eno helping out with advice and backing vocals.
Having been out of the limelight in the UK for almost four years, James were unsure of what reaction they would get. Three warm-up shows at the end of January were rapturously received. The first single She’s A Star was A-listed by Radio 1 and hit number 9 when released in February. The album was released two weeks later and also went to number 9, not up to the placings of previous albums but a meritable performance given the four year hiatus since Laid.

Press reaction to the album was not entirely favourable. Whilst the more conventional tracks were well-received, the more experimental electronic tracks were viewed less favourably, criticised for lacking structure and direction and the lyrical content not reflecting the nature of the music.

Tomorrow, rerecorded from the Wah Wah album, was released as the second single in April, and hit number 13. It coincided with the end of a UK tour which had sold out well in advance, confirming that James audience was still there. Another factor in the success of the single was the 3 CD format that had been employed for both Tomorrow and She’s A Star – one with new b-sides, one with live or session tracks and one with largely unsuccessful remixes.

Following the UK tour, James had scheduled a month and a half tour of America to promote the album. Tim injured his neck on the opening night in Vancouver and struggled to make it through two nights in Portland and Seattle before bowing to the inevitable. A week in traction in a very seedy San Francisco hotel followed. With Tim only half-fit and wearing a neck brace, the band tried to make amends for the cancelled tour, taking their place on the Lollapolooza tour next to Korn, Prodigy and Orbital. Unsurprisingly, this failed to give the album any kind of significant push.

Back in the UK, Waltzing Along became the third single to be released off the album, the rerecorded version hitting number 23 without any significant promotion as the band were still in America.

Lost A Friend was then being touted as a fourth single off Whiplash and a precursor to the planned Best Of album. B-sides were recorded and a set of remixes were commissioned. This was shelved as the record company decided James should record new tracks for The Best Of and promoting another single would delay the release schedule unnecessarily.

Tim doesn’t like the Stephen Hague production of the album, feeling that it is too big, bright and hollow for the songs.

The album was reissued in 2001 and again on double heavy 180g vinyl in 2017. Read about the 2017 reissue on EvenTheStars.

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Whiplash (Japan)

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Whiplash (Import, Japan), a 1997 Album by James.

Summary

Japanese version of Whiplash with OBI sleeve and lyric booklet in Japanese and English.

Track List

Tomorrow / Lost A Friend / Waltzing Along / She’s A Star / Greenpeace / Go To The Bank / Play Dead / Avalanche / Homeboy / Watering Hole / Blue Pastures / Gone Too Far

Details

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Release Name: Whiplash (Import, Japan)
Artist Name:
Release Date: 24th February 1997
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: PHCR-1504

Japanese version of Whiplash with OBI sleeve and lyric booklet in Japanese and English.

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Wah Wah

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Wah Wah, a 1994 Studio Album by James.

Summary

Released 30 years ago in 1994, Wah Wah is an album of jams and experimental tracks recorded during the Laid sessions. The band had intended for it to be released with Laid, but this was overruled by their record company.

Track List

Hammer Strings / Pressure’s On / Jam J / Frequency Dip / Lay The Law Down / Burn The Cat / Maria / Low Clouds / Building A Fire / Gospel Oak / DVV / Say Say Something / Rhythmic Dreams / Dead Man / Rain Whistling / Basic Brian / Low Clouds / Bottom Of The Well / Honest Joe / Arabic Agony / Tomorrow / Laughter / Sayonara

Details

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Release Name: Wah Wah
Artist Name: James
Release Date: 12th September 1994
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: LP – 522 827-1, CAS 522 827-4, CD 522 827-2

Wah Wah was recorded during the six-week sessions for the Laid LP at Real World Studios in Bath. The band had set up a second studio where they could jam when not working on the Laid album. Brian Eno or Markus Dravs would then select a piece of this improvised music and mix it, but only doing one take on the mix to keep in the spirit of the improvisation. Tim was then left to come up with lyrics, but with many of the tracks they remained instrumentals or had soundbites rather than coherent structured lyrics.

All but three of the tracks on Wah Wah were conceived this way according to Tim’s liner notes. Pressure’s On dated back to 1991. Maria, albeit in more conventional form, had been in the James live set since 1992, but failed to make the cut for Laid. Tomorrow was said to have been conceived at BBC’s Maida Vale studios on the day Laid was released, when the band had time between playing a song into each show that day on Radio 1.

The concept of Wah Wah came about when Eno visited the band’s rehearsals in Manchester before the album sessions began and witnessed the unique jamming process which provided the seeds for James songs. He felt that the results of these jams were as important to James sound as the songs that emerged and encouraged them to consider releasing these jams.

Plans to release Wah Wah coincidentally with Laid were shelved as the record company were initially reluctant to release it. Jam J was coupled with Say Something from Laid as a double a-side in March 1994 – however it was the latter that received the majority of the radio play and the MTV-friendly video.

Struggling to decide how to release the album, it eventually came out as a limited edition which was to be deleted after one week in September 1994. There was to be no single, no tour and very little other promotion of the album.

Despite this the album reached number 11 in its week of release although it did disappear quickly from the charts. Pressure’s On, Basic Brian, Jam J, Honest Joe and Tomorrow (later to be resurrected for Whiplash) had featured regularly in James live sets, but there was little to appeal to the more casual James fan in the rest of the album. For the more committed, it provided a previously unseen insight into the band’s working methods.

The press response to the album was mixed. The low profile of the release saw it ignored in certain quarters. Some reviewers missed the concept of the album and were puzzled as to why James were releasing it at all. The NME bizarrely called it “one of the few genuinely engaging dance albums around.”

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Laid

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Laid, a 1993 Studio Album by James.

Summary

Laid is James’s fifth album and a follow up to Seven. It features a more stripped-back sound and contains the US breakthrough single Laid. It was released 31 years ago in 1993, reissued with 2001 with additional tracks, and reissued again in 2015 with a second CD of  b-sides, radio sessions, demos and jams.

Track List

Out To Get You / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Dream Thrum / One Of The Three / Say Something / Five-O / P.S. / Everybody Knows / Knuckle Too Far / Low Low Low / Laid / Lullaby / Skindiving

Also included in 2001 reissue:

Laid (live) / Sometimes (live) / Five-O (live) / Say Something (remix)

The 2015 Deluxe Edition reissue contained a second CD with the following:

America (Live In The US, September / 1992) / Building A Charge / Wah Wah Kits / The Lake / Seconds Away / Say Something (New Version) / Jam J / Assassin / Laid (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Five-O (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Sometimes (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Say Something (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Low Low Low (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Tomorrow (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Dream Thrum (Rehearsal) / You Were Born (Early Version Of “One Of The Three” / Outtake) / Bruce Jam 1 (Early Version Of “Knuckle Too Far”) / Carousel

Details

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Release Name: Laid
Artist Name: James
Release Date: 27th September 1993
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: LP – 514 943-1, CAS 514 943-4, CD 514 943-2; CD 548 787-2 (re-issue); Deluxe Edition 2xCD 0602547095947

Following the success of Seven, Andy Diagram left the band to pursue other musical interests, taking the distinctive trumpet sound of the album with him.  The acoustic tour of America with Neil Young had a profound influence on the band’s sound, playing acoustically focusing the band on producing a more simple “stripped and naked” sound.

The other distinctive factor in the sound of Laid was the appointment of Brian Eno as producer. Where Seven sounded like a band striving for perfection, “Brian encouraged us to improvise, encouraged us to use takes where we didn’t know what we were doing. He made us realise that this imperfection was a good thing.” (Jim, Q 1993).

Most of Laid was recorded over a six-week period in the spring of 1993 at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. Using two separate studios, one for the album “proper” and one for jams, the band recorded over fifty tracks, which also spurned the double album Wah Wah, which was released in 1994. The band did actually also try to record a live album at the same time playing a one-off gig at the Moles Club in Bath, but had underestimated their ability to play the new material live. Present at the show however was Peter Gabriel who approached the band to join the US WOMAD tour that summer.

Unlike previous albums, very little of Laid had been played live before it was recorded – Say Something had been in the set since April 1992 and Low Low Low had began life as a six-minute improvised trumpet epic. Read Tim’s track-by-track commentary on the album by clicking on the above link.

Laid received mixed but generally positive reviews in the music press. The stripped-down sound was seen as a welcome return to the band’s folky roots and a step back from the perceived stadium rock sound of Seven. The two singles released around the album, Sometimes and Laid, received surprisingly positive reviews, but only achieved moderate chart success.

The album peaked at Number 3 in the UK charts. Internationally, the band’s German record company initially refused to promote the album, claiming that without an obvious lead track and single it would not sell. The album went to Number 1 in Portugal. But the major breakthrough of Laid was in America where the album peaked at number 68, but sold over 600,000 copies as the band spent most of the first half of 1994 touring, starting with a number of support slots with Duran Duran followed by two headline tours, culminating in an invitation to play Woodstock 2 in August in front of 300,000 people.

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Laid (Japan)

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Laid (Import, Japan), a 1993 Album by James.

Summary

Japanese version of Laid with OBI sleeve and lyric booklet in Japanese and English.

Track List

Out To Get You / Sometimes / Dream Thrum / One Of The Three / Say Something / Five-O / PS / Everybody Knows / Knuckle Too Far / Low Low Low / Laid / Lullaby / Skindiving / The Lake / America

Details

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Release Name: Laid (Import, Japan)
Artist Name:
Release Date: 27th September 1993
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: PHCR-68

Japanese version of Laid with OBI sleeve and lyric booklet in Japanese and English.

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Seven

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Seven, a 1992 Studio Album by James.

Summary

Seven was a difficult fourth studio album for the band to produce. It was originally scheduled to be released to coincide with the September 1991 tour, but eventually emerged the following year. Even though it was initially panned by critics, it has remained a fan favourite for 32 years.

Track List

Original Release:

Born Of Frustration / Ring The Bells / Sound / Bring A Gun / Mother / Don’t Wait That Long / Live A Love Of Life / Next Lover (not on vinyl) / Heavens / Protect Me / Seven

2001 Reissue:

Born Of Frustration / Ring The Bells / Sound / Bring A Gun / Mother / Don’t Wait That Long / Live A Love Of Life / Next Lover / Heavens / Protect Me / Seven / Protect Me (live acoustic) / Sound (live) / Heavens (live) / Don’t Wait That Long (live)

2017 Vinyl Reissue:

Born Of Frustration / Ring The Bells / Sound / Bring A Gun / Mother / Don’t Wait That Long / Live A Love Of Life / Next Lover / Heavens / Protect Me / Seven

Details

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Release Name: Seven
Artist Name: James
Release Date: 17th February 1992
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: LP – 510 932-1, CAS 510 932-4, CD 510 932-2; CD 548 786-2 (re-issue)

Most of the tracks that would form the Seven album were written in 1990, several were debuted on the World Cup tour and others on the December tour, with Ring The Bells, Bring A Gun and Next Lover featuring on the Come Home live video. A secret gig at Paris La Locomotive club in March 1991 saw the band start with ten new unreleased tracks from the demos they had just completed for Seven (Pressure’s On did not see the light of day until Wah Wah and Somebody Help Me remains unreleased).

The recording process for Seven did not go at all to plan. The extended success of Sit Down and the associated promotion delayed recording. The album was scheduled for the autumn originally and a massive 30-date UK tour had been announced to coincide.

Recording with Youth was a strange experience for the band. Shunning conventional methods he set the studios up with no artificial light but used candles to light the studio. The band were not happy with the sound of the initial recordings and when the studio time they had booked was completed, the album was only half-finished. Phonogram’s suggestions for producers to complete the job were rejected by the band, the job in the end going to the band themselves with the assistance of Steve Chase.

The delays meant that the album went ahead with no new product to promote, the single Sound coming out only at the very end of the tour. Audiences expecting a set full of Sit Downs were met by a peppering of the new album and some wilfully difficult selections from the band’s earlier material. Just before Christmas, the band organised a fan club show at Warrington Parr Hall where the whole album was previewed, this show being recorded for release as Seven The Live Video.

With the album finally finished, another single, Born of Frustration, was released in January followed by the album in February just as the band had set off on their first tour of America, thus being unable to put in the traditional promotional activities to coincide with the release.

The album was generally panned by the critics with lazy accusations of stadium rock being thrown at the band. The band still spring to the album’s defence – Tim said in Q in 1993 “I stand by Seven. It’s a good record. And if people have a problem with that they can fuck off”. The general consensus within band circles was that a backlash was inevitable after Sit Down whatever the band had released.

Lyrically, the band makes very strong references to the fallout of Tim’s relationship with the band’s manager Martine. The depth of feeling in some of the tracks was self-evident in Tim’s emotional reaction to some of the songs as he had been singing them live on the autumn tour.

Disappointingly the album only reached Number 2 being held off top spot by Simply Red’s Stars although it was Number 1 in the less significant Network chart.

The band toured the album around Europe in April and May which coincided with Ring The Bells as the third single which struggled to reach the Top 40, again partly down to the lack of promotion and live appearances.

The summer saw James biggest headlining live performance of their own at Alton Towers fun park on July 4, broadcast live on Radio 1. A fourth single from the album, a remix of the title track with the three new tracks added to make the EP at the band’s assistance was released the following Monday and failed to reach the Top 40, peaking at number 46.

Seven did however cement James position as one of the UK’s leading alternative bands despite the press mauling it received. It also had some consequences that would alter the course of the band – it prompted the invitation to support Neil Young on his acoustic US tour that autumn and Brian Eno to want to work with the band.

The album was reissued in 2001 and again on double heavy 180g vinyl in 2017. Read about the 2017 reissue on EvenTheStars.

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