This to me is an album that broke my heart. It’s the sound of the end of a love affair – my first affair with James. I’ll be completely honest and say when I first heard this album something inside me died and it took a long time for my passion for James to be resurrected. To be fair there was a lot of change in my life at the time and music had ceased to be the outlet for all my passion, frustration and joy and in many ways I blame this album for being the headstone on a particular part of my life. So there is some prejudice there. But all the same, although there are a few songs on this album that I do honestly like, it still breaks my heart for all the wrong reasons every time I hear it. It plumbs the depths of every cliché, everything I despise in a lot of music. I wrote this whilst listening to Millionaires, partly in response to Mac’s review here: http://oneofthethree.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=3555&page=1#41469
I really hoped I could listen to it and find something new, something magical that I’d perhaps overlooked before. But no, I’m afraid it wasn’t to be. I listened and heard the sound of my heart breaking all over again… what follows is a track by track assassination of Millionaires. Look away now if you’re squeamish.
Crash – When I first heard this song I really did think Tim was singing ‘cut the hurt man free from the hedge’ which almost makes more sense. It’s about a car crash innit? The woo woo’s are possibly the worst thing on a James album ever. Car crash lyrics and a car crash sound hurtling to oblivion down the great pop dumper as they used to say in Smash Hits. I don’t want my first thought to a James album to be ‘Fuck they’ve lost it’ but that’s what this song does for me.
Fred Astaire – The production is sugary, but as Mac says it works in this case. It’s a gorgeous brimming over song of the wonderful first flush of love and lust, something that you need reminding of when you’ve been married for ten years… The crank everything up and throw everything in approach works, it’s a gorgeous orgasmic explosion of a song.
I Know What I'm Here For – When I hear this song I’m reminded of I Know Why I stopped listening to tHis band For some time. I heard it on the radio, and my other half who was a cynical James deriding bastard at the time was unimpressed to say the least. I realised that there was no way I could justify it even because it was James. It was utter, utter gash. The keyboards, the cheese, the lyrical subject matter about hating what you do, and hanging in there till you can get out. It’s not exactly inspiring, more like banging stuff out for the sake of it. And the video should be put into Room 101 frankly, as if the horror of the song wasn’t enough, THAT video slams the nails on the coffin firmly shut.
Shooting My Mouth Off – Like Mac I’m not a fan of Tim’s vocal. I know he had ME and issues with singing at the time, so I imagine it’s some singing technique. But it’s not the same voice I fell in love with in my bedroom when I was 14. I’m trying to be kind, but it’s a bit like finding out that hot thing you adored from afar in the sixth form has turned into a pot bellied loser working in Sainsbury’s.
We're Gonna Miss You – This song is wonderful. It’s menacing and has an edge to it. It’s memorable, which is high praise in the context of this album. It wakes up my spine and makes me want to dance. And again, not much of this album does that to me.
Strangers – It has some seed of beauty, but it plods. ‘My heart’s hard to find’ sums it up really. It’s a worn out song lacking in passion. The sound of a dying band railing against the dying light, hoping if they say ‘this is not the end’ enough they might pull through.
Hello– A vocal worse than SMMO. It’s reedy and thin. At this point my love affair was well and truly over. A clapped out Tim singing with a backing band. And yes, yet more plodding. ‘Somebody dreams a brave new world, I’m forbidden to breathe its pearl’ is crushingly true. Imagine if you were Tim about to leave James with the crushing realisation that all your hopes and creative energy for so long had ended with this. A beautiful lyric killed amongst a maelstrom of averageness.
Afro Lover –I’m imagining they thought in the pick and mix factory of album track ordering, the last couple of tracks have plodded a bit, let’s crank it back up. This album is a discordant clash of plodding guitar or cranked up guitar, all generic and samey with fake plastic passion. There’s no seed of inspiration here just a worn out bunch of comfortable shoes going through the motions. Listen to the line ‘somewhere deep in no man's land, some man has lost a key’ and try not to draw parallels. I actually quite like the harmonica though. At least it’s trying to do something different. Or maybe they got bored of just cranking the guitars up. Either way the title ‘Afro Lover’ really does suck.
Surprise – You hope to be surprised by this point, maybe another gem like Fred Astaire. But no, apparently now they’re hanging around, lyrically this album is born of confusion. Like a divorcing couple going through pointless marriage counselling. ‘Gotta fix, gotta fix what's not broken. All broke, all broke, I'm busted’ I’m sorry but this album is the soundtrack of a broken relationship scrabbling in the dark to find a way out. Maybe the album should’ve been subtitled Millionaires – (Should I Stay Or Should I Go, Maybe The Divorce Payout Will Make Me A Millionaire) I’m not satisfied either.
Dumb Jam – Listen to the Whiplash Tapes version, and then the album version and weep. What did they do to it? In the Whiplash Tapes version the piano sound is funkier; the guitars sound less like Oasis out-takes. Here it turns into generic claptrap. I will admit to actually really liking the lyrics to this song, it at least stretches outside the leaving/going existential misery. And that line ‘the moon is rising, it’s a physical thing, she’s only acting on the rite of spring’ is wonderful, and so James and yet the music behind it is just turgid. These are lyrics with a glint of Kali in their eye and yet there's just nothing there musically that even glances in the same direction. I loved James because they were different, they railed against everything that was samey and predictable. They certainly didn’t try to sound like Oasis, an ambition so criminal it pains me to even say it.
Someone's Got It In For Me – Yet more misery. If there was the right tension in the song it could be wonderful, but there isn’t. It’s like a cocktail with too many things thrown in. A meal that’s too big to possibly eat and appreciate properly. A song of misery over egged to the extent that all sense of tragedy is lost and you're left thinking, OK then hurry up and top yourself and get it over and done with. I somehow doubt that was Tim’s intention.
Vervaceous – This song has grown on me. My first thought was that it was a bit of a poor mans TOTW, but it stands out head and shoulders from the preceding dross. It’s not cranked up, and it’s not plodding!! It has dynamics, it dares to do something different, something out of character. Hang On! Holy Fuck It Sounds Like A James Song! At long last! Except that’s it, the album’s over now…
I find it interesting that Mac picks up on the lyrical dysfunction of this album, as it’s probably why I don’t connect with it at all. Yes, sometimes songs just are throwaway and I’m not suggesting depth and seriousness all the time, nor do I want that, but this album is just a clichéd hash. Lyrically there’s such fragility, and yet musically it just waivers between two dimensions of cranked up or plodding. James’ music exists as a balance between fragility and magic. There’s no balance here and even less magic. And as for originality, it just sounds to me like a band going through the motions of dying, and if you love James as much as I do that’s not a pleasant thought. For me the beauty of James’ music has always been that it’s somehow different and indefinable, but this album is generic and undistinguished. The only coherence is an abiding sense of averageness. The lack of communication within the band at the time isn't just palpable in the lyrics; the music itself isn't inventive, everything is just thrown into the mix in the hope that it'll magically paper over the cracks.
It's struck me just how ironically appropriate the artwork is, a pig dressed in pearls. That's just what this album is, the reverse of mutton dressed as lamb, this is lamb trashed down to mutton, a silk purse transformed into a sow's ear. And whilst I’m not Mac, I’m not losing sleep over this and I don’t feel the need to harangue band members late into the night on its detractions, I am saddened still by the blandness of this album. Lost potential is one of the saddest things I can think of.
Normal gushing adoring James-loving service will be resumed on my next post.
