Two-track Australian single featuring All My Sons as b-side as per UK 7″
Sound / All My Sons
| Release Name: | Sound (Import, Australia) |
| Artist Name: | James |
| Release Date: | November 1991 |
| Format: | Studio Single |
| Catalogue: | 866197-2 |
| Related Release(s): |
Two-track Australian single featuring All My Sons as b-side as per UK 7″
Sound is the follow-up single to Sit Down that reached 9 in the UK Singles Chart.
7″ JIM9 – Sound (7″ version) / All My Sons
CAS JIMC9 – Sound (7″ version) / All My Sons
12″ JIM912 – Sound (7″ version) / All My Sons / Come Home (Youth Pressure Dub) / Sound (full length)
CD JIM9 CD – Sound (7″ version) / All My Sons / Come Home (Youth Pressure Dub) / Sound (full length)
| Release Name: | Sound |
| Artist Name: | James |
| Release Date: | 18th November 1991 |
| Format: | Studio Single |
| Catalogue: | 7" JIM9; 12" JIM912; CD JIM9 CD; CAS JIMC9 |
| Related Release(s): |
Following the massive success of Sit Down was never going to be an easy task. In typical James fashion, they chose not to release one of the more obvious singles off Seven but went for a six-minute understated epic called Sound. Fans converted by the singalong Sit Down were to be surprised by the new single.
The single was backed by the radio version of the single, All My Sons and a remix of the James standard Come Home by Seven producer Youth. All My Sons clocked in at under two minutes and was a rant at the Gulf War written in late 1990 and first aired live in December 1990.
Press reaction to the single was generally negative. Accused of stadium rock by critics after the recently finished tour, the layered sound of the single provided ammunition to those accusations in their eyes. The inevitable U2 comparisons ensued.
The single was promoted by a series of Radio 1 interviews and the now obligatory appearance on The Word and children’s television including a rather amusing performance on Going Live, where the band en-masse took the piss out of presenter Phillip Schofield.
Artwork was again kept simple with a band photograph with James name superimposed over the top.
Sound entered the charts at number 9. Another Top of the Pops appearance resulted from this success, but the single dropped out of the Top Ten the following week failing to match Sit Down’s second week climb and longevity.
Doubtless this will infuriate James pop fan contingent expecting another ‘Come Home’. Instead James do the decent thing and spread their wings with a grace and elegance which – despite what people say – saves them from stadiumitis. There are stadium-guitar traits here, but thankfully, they don’t come wrapped up in the bombastic shroud widely reported of their recent live shows. Sound (even the title works on various levels) is a layered number with a nice urgent bassline and flickering guitars. Tim Booth, meantime, sounds less fraught than his ‘Gold Mother’ era, though still uncomfortable with the world in general. I like him.
James: Sound Press Release November 1991
James end a triumphant year with a brand new single ‘Sound’. Released by Fontana on November 18th this is a taster for their new album, which is set for release in the Spring of 92.
‘Sound’, a new Booth/Gott/Glennie song. was produced by Youth and mixed by Tim Palmer. The 7″ is backed by another new song, ‘All My Sons’. while the four track 12″ and CD contain extended versions of ‘Sound’ plus Youth’s Pressure Dub Mix of ‘Come Home”.
James chequered eight year history finally came to fruition in 1991. They enjoyed a number two hit with ‘Sit Down’ in April, their live ‘Come Home’ video topped the video charts, their ‘Gold Mother’ LP has sold quarter of a million in the UK, while the band played their biggest show to date when they topped the Saturday night at the Reading Festival, going on to play a 36 date sell-out UK tour.
In Europe a series of summer festival appearances saw the band enjoying a long deserved continental success, while American alternative radio has embraced ‘Sit Down’.
Press release for James’ single Sound.
Phillip Schofield : Come and have a seat at the front. Always a pleasure to have you on the programme. That’s a great housecoat by the way – that’s a heck of a thing. Fabulous. I bet you can go straight back to bed afterwards. Welcome to you. I’ve got a couple of things for you here. First of all this has come from Christine Free who is in Swindon. My daughter Poppy is an avid James fan as you can see from the enclosed photo. There we are. There’s a nice picture there. Had her hair done. Extraordinary. So I thought if we gave that to you, maybe you could send her a picture or something.
Tim : Yeah sure. Find out her hairdresser
PS : If you’ve got time. The other one I’ve got here, we’ll get through the fan mail first of all if that’s alright, this is from Susan. Susan is in Greater Manchester and she’s done a whole load of pictures for you here. Masses of them. All sorts of stuff.
Tim : Who’s that psychopath?
PS : Let me show you the originals. Those are the originals there.
Tim : Thank you.
Jim : Who is it?
Tim : It’s Andy
PS : A bit skinny in that one actually.
Tim : Oh, I’m like that under this coat.
PS : Well you do apparently, I was reading all this stuff on you last night, and apparently is it true that you lose a stone when you’re touring? When you’re performing.
Tim : Yeah. From the beginning of the tour to the end, kind of. Not in one concert
PS : Does that mean you can pig out? You can have those as well. You can pig out in a major way before you go on tour because you know you’re going to lose it before the end?
Tim : Yeah, but not straight before a concert because you end up belching in the middle of a song which isn’t very healthy. As you’ll find out I think.
PS : Oh no, I shan’t be eating, I’ll be far too nervous to do any of that stuff
Tim : No fizzy drinks
PS : Is that right? Thanks for the advice. It’s going quite well actually, I’m quite pleased with it at the moment.
Tim : You’ve got a good teacher
PS : Yes I have. Got a very good teacher. Thank you. Let’s get on with that now. Going back to reading through all the newspaper stuff, live is very important, your live stuff is very important to you. I mean you were singing live vocals this morning on the programme. Is it important for you to get out and do it live.
Tim : Yeah, yeah
Jim : We’ve just finished a really big tour and that was great fun. It’s what we do best at the end of the day.
PS : My brother says it’s one of the best concerts he’s ever seen actually, really enjoyed it and that’s high praise from him by the way. A lot of people would say, apart from your fanatical fans that you’ve got, that it was almost sort of an overnight success. You’ve actually been plugging away at it for quite a while, haven’t you? Eight years or so
Tim : Yeah, me and him have been together about ten years and James have been going about nine.
PS : Did you feel comfortable about slipping out of that cult status and into commercial popdom? Do you want that to happen?
Tim : We needed the money so we didn’t turn it down. Because we’ve been going so long, we write all our songs through improvisation so we can’t change it so it doesn’t affect the way we make our music. We did, I think we’d had enough of being in that cult ghetto which gets tedious after a while and it’s nice to reach as many people as possible. We’re not prejudiced. We like to have young and old and families and their really young kids, it’s great.
PS : It’s alright being cult but it doesn’t pay the mortgage.
Jim : Biggest cult band in the world.
James end a triumphant year with a brand new single ‘Sound’. Released by Fontana on November 18th this is a taster for their new album, which is set for release in the Spring of 92.
‘Sound’, a new Booth/Gott/Glennie song. was produced by Youth and mixed by Tim Palmer. The 7″ is backed by another new song, ‘All My Sons’. while the four track 12″ and CD contain extended versions of ‘Sound’ plus Youth’s Pressure Dub Mix of ‘Come Home”.
James chequered eight year history finally came to fruition in 1991. They enjoyed a number two hit with ‘Sit Down’ in April, their live ‘Come Home’ video topped the video charts, their ‘Gold Mother’ LP has sold quarter of a million in the UK, while the band played their biggest show to date when they topped the Saturday night at the Reading Festival, going on to play a 36 date sellout UK tour.
In Europe a series of summer festival appearances saw the band enjoying a long deserved continental success, while American alternative radio has embraced ‘Sit Down’.
7″ JIM 9 SOUND / ALL MY SONS
12″ JIM 912 SOUND (FULL VERSION) / (EDIT) / COME HOME (YOUTH’S DUB) / ALL MY SONS
CASSETTE JIM 9 SOUND / ALL MY SONS
CD JIMCD 9 SOUND (FULL VERSION) / (EDIT) / COME HOME (YOUTH’S DUB) / ALL MY SONS
James round off a triumphant 1991 in which they scored a number two hit with Sit Down and topped the bill at the Reading Festival with a new single.
The track Sound will be the first taster of their new album, due out in Spring 92. The track was produced by Youth and mixed by Tim Palmer, and is backed by another new song All My Sons. 12-inch and CD formats also carry Youth’s dub mix of Come Home plus an extended mix of Sound.
Sound is released on Fontana on November 18.
Dave Haslam, prominent Manchester journalist / DJ has been commissioned to write James’s authorised biography, which will be published by Omnibus next year.