Track Listing

1. Crash
2. Just Like Fred Astaire
3. I Know What I'm Here For
4. Shooting My Mouth Off
5. We're Going To Miss You
6. Strangers
7. Hello
8. Afro Lover
9. Surprise
10. Dumb Jam
11. Someone's Got It In For Me
12. Vervaceous

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26805 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 51 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
James, clearly reinvigorated by the chart-topping success of their 1998 Best Of collection, are playing to their strengths again on Millionaires. The occasionally abstruse experimental noodlings that have punctuated their career have been left behind, and Millionaires amounts to 12 tracks which all sound determined to make the album's title a self-fulfilling prophecy. All the mannerisms which served to make James the biggest band in Britain in the early 1990s are present: clattering rhythms that might have been designed to serve Tim Booth's wasp-in-shirt dancing, expansively sweeping arrangements (Brian Eno co-produces), and almost annoyingly catchy choruses: "Crash", "I Know What I'm Here For", "Shooting My Mouth Off" and "We're Going To Miss You" are all spiritual--and worthy--successors to "Sit Down" and "Sound". --Andrew Mueller

Customer Reviews

Still my favourite James album
There are quite a few "die-hard" James fans who go on about this album being over-produced and lacking spontaneity. But for me, this is James' best and most realised album. It is also consistent all the way through, something sadly lacking with the album after this one, Pleased To Meet You. The essential tracks on this album are Just Like Fred Astaire, Surprise and the crowd-pleasing We're Gonna Miss You. I've only just bought the new album Hey Ma, so the jury is still out on that - but, for me, it still doesn't sound consistently as good as this classic.

Ground Control To Major Tim... your moment has arrived...
James were and still are an odd band. They were often compared in the UK music press to R.E.M., this being perhaps down to the facts that both bands duly slogged away for a decade or more before managing to break through into the mainstream, and also due to both bands' seeming to revolve around the enigmatic outpourings of a sexually androdynous and wilfully mysterious frontman. The seemingly deliberate 'big' stylings of Millionaires's songs are in keeping with James's previous ventures into epic indie - indeed, while James's contribution to British guitar rock seems to have been forgotten in their absence, the likes of Travis and Coldplay continue to deliberately homage their endeavours. (Remember, Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland only started writing together because they were both huge James fans... And doesn't Travis's recent single Closer sound like a something Booth and co didn't get around to finishing in 1995 or so?) The early years saw James more concerned with surrealistic experimentalism, a trait the band would later refine and integrate into a more coherent pop framework with the more cultured likes of Seven and Laid - and through their work with uber-leftfield producer Brian Eno, who is endlessly lauded for his work with Bowie, U2 and Talking Heads among others, but with Millionaires - along with his work on Laid, Wah-Wah, Whiplash and Pleased To Meet You - contributes immenseley to helping create that elusive James sound. Tim Booth spoke of his experience with religious cults and streamlined spiritual angst into that handy medium of the pop lyric, while his assembled cadre of indie associates (not to demean their contribution, but I rather suspect it would take too long to namecheck them all, including the bloke on trumpet, so I won't) supported him - and his crazy dancing - with some fantastic tunes, not least of all that perennial indie disco favourite Sit Down (I myself remember subversively refusing to do just this back at a school disco back in 1989 or so - I liked the song but saw the inherent flaw in having to collapse on the floor when there was dancing to be done, but this is fairly irrelevant). At the time of their late-nineties moment in the spotlight, James were reguarly being showered with best-band-in-the-world style accolades - but alas, as is the case case with most 'serious' indie / rock bands who peak too soon or too late (see also Radiohead, the Manics, Blur, any 4 or more skinny white blokes making non-fun music) by the time of their next album Pleased to Meet You the public praise seemed to have dissipated and Booth quit the band, leading to an eventual quiet dissolution. Millionaires follows the relatively unfocused Whiplash and kicks off in fine style with the absurdly jolly and/or tearful Crash, which along with Afro Lover and I Know What I'm Here For satisfy the old skool Baggy fanatic still lurking in James's fanbase. Shooting My Mouth Off starts off all ambient and mysterious like U2 - no doubt Eno's sideways influence again - before kicking off and joyously referencing New Order in its distinctly Peter Hook-esque melodies, then continuing the homage with Were Going To Miss You which marries Stipean melodies to metronomic krautrock and Joy Division-patented robotic dronery. Hello is a hushed, enveloping waltz, the kind that James do so well, ironically bidding farewell to a collapsed relationship by finding a new way to say hello. The only wobbly point for this critic lies with Surprise and more notably, Someone's Got It In For Me, both of which seem to plagiarise shamelessly from Frankie Goes To Hollywood's epic ballad The Power Of Love, either intentionally or otherwise. But of course, James manage to save the best for last with the mighty Vervaceous, an ethereal rock epic which sees Eno's influence writ large; there's a definite trace of the title track of Eno's 1975 album Another Green World (aka the Arena theme, for those of a certain age in the UK) in the processed, spacey synths, while the lyric for this reviewer conjures up Bowie's Space Oddity and some imagined apocalyptic end of the planet Earth; but with a note of hope - maybe we don't need to come back down. And then there's the moment four minutes in where the track builds to a psychedelic crescendo before dropping out to an alien pulse, and out of nowhere, the ghostly and fragile vocoderised voice of Sinead O'Connor carries the album off into outer space, drifting through the atmosphere, like the last transmissions of a long dead race. A mighty piece of work, and I for one am glad that several years down the line James are back and hard at work on a new album. Further work pending, Millionaires may be their most complete work to date. Long may they be ignored by those who forget to listen...

3.5 stars
I'm slowly getting into James, and I must say this is a good album - I only steer clear of the 4 star accolade because I would rate some of my all-time favourite albums as only 4 stars. However, I've put 4 stars at the top because it wanted me to put something dammit, and 3 stars isn't really fair.

The first three tracks combine to be, in my opinion, one of the best opening trios to any album ever. The beginning to Crash enters you immediately into the world of James, and it's annoyingly catchy and clever at the same time. It then paves the way for the beautiful Just Like Fred Astaire - one of my all-time favourite love songs - and the brilliant I Know What I'm Here For. To be honest, it's probably worth buying the record for those superb first three songs.

The album slows down after that, but doesn't lose its way. Highlights amidst the more downtempo songs are Strangers, Hello and Someone's Got It In For Me, all of which are epic and string-laden - this seems to be what James enjoy doing and it really works. It's ambitious but pretty much pulled off.

There aren't many specific downsides - just that some of the album wanders through aimlessly. On the whole though, it's very good - beautiful in places - and well worth a look.

Is it just me or is the end to the album (last couple of minutes of Vervaceous) a bit like Imogen Heap's 'Hide And Seek', as heard in the finale to the second series of The O.C.? Just a thought.