Customer Reviews

Pleased To Meet You

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Years ago, after hearing - I mean really hearing - 'Laid', it became one of those timeless fantastic albums that you couldn't get tired of. The multi-layered slow builders - one instument carefully threaded on top of another - sometimes subtle, sometimes overt - but each adding to the final adrenalin rushing creshendo. Then suddenly it stops - all to start again in the next song. Just brilliant!

Then a couple of dodgy albums - 'Millionaires' being particularly weak. Ephemeral pulp - perhaps a wink at the mainstream in mind, but very misguided. Deep waters just aren't any good at pulp. Witness Bono or Ed Kowalcsyk's miserable forays into MTV-ville.

So now - 'Pleased to Meet You' landed on my table without much excitement. Halfway through 'Space' I was interested again - a couple of songs later I remembered why I was such a huge James fan. The Jameses have remembered what is uniquely theirs - the simple lyrical, incremental, subtle pop song. Its incredible how good the three chord wonder can sound in their hands.

Outstanding tracks are:

Space - long ethereal build up to a classic James song. Goes forward adding slowly to the wall of sound until the abrupt end five minutes later. An object lesson in not rushing the climax. This is what James are all about.

English Beefcake - Driven by a simple but beautiful bass line. Haunting guitar and keyboard melody. Great lyrics. A somewhat strange outro leaves you uncertain if you've moved onto the next song or not. Pity about the WhoaHo stuff at the end.... .

Junkie - Up front miked accoustic guitar (think Everlast - Whitey Sings the Blues). Unhurried shuffling drums. Sounds like Tim's singing with a peg on his nose but he's got issues worth crooning about.

Pleased to Meet You - Probably the darkest track on the album and the most memorable for it. Starting with a simple repetitive guitar refrain with a spacey keyboard background. Enter the brushed snare - eerie chorus line - pregnant scary bass bridge - wham! hit the distort button. Needs to be played loud and often.

Alaskan Pipeline - Beautiful filmic endpiece. 'You mother me, I son you'. Say no more.

Genius. Although Britney Spears probably couldn't give a hoot - there is still good music being made and selling too!

This CD turned out to be the last studio effort by Tim Booth w/ the rest of the band named James. ...This means for any James fan out there, this album and the subsequent live album "Getting Away With It...Live" are musts to own, for they mark an end of an era of 20 years of Tim Booth as lead singer.

Musically, this album is very good. The bass play in "English Beefcake" is very Cure-esque with long bass notes driving the rhythm.

"Junkie" reminds me of The Church with it's sublime feel and social commentary.

The title track "Pleased to Meet You" starts slow and hypnotizing, but don't be fooled! Your speakers better be able to handle the guitar at 3:40 into the song! It'll wake you up on a long drive, that's for sure.

"Senorita" is an upbeat song with a strong chorus and verse that explores the lines of love/lust/worship. "I'm addicted to you/I hope we're going to pull through/I'm addicted to you/You're my love, my Senorita/I'm addicted to you/you're the god that makes me stronger/"

On "Falling Down" and "Fine", one hears James experimenting w/ basic dance rhythms that don't dominate, but rather enhance the "mellow" of the album.

All in all this is a solid album. Nothing to get worked up about in a negative sense, except that it almost makes one downright sorrowful for passing of the Booth era of James.

Sadly, this may be the last studio effort from the great English band JAMES. If it isn't, then it is most likely the last to feature their charismatic frontman, Tim Booth. Following the release of this album. Booth announced he was leaving the band in December of 2001.
JAMES seemed to really hit their stride with a string of singles in the early to mid 1990's. Though they could never maintain the momentum, they continued making excellent music (check out their amazing 1999 release, "Millionaires.")
PLEASED TO MEET YOU finds the band as experimental and groundbreaking as ever. This album has a true sense of the band looking forward, to the future, to, ironically, the bands future.
The lead off track, SPACE, is text book JAMES: spooky, bizarre, at times hilarious, and downright catchy. The lines "you've gotta get over yourself" will reverberate in your head for quite some time.
Another real stand out is the song GETTING AWAY WITH IT, a dark, twisted anthem with more catchy tunes and cutting lyrics.
THE SHINING and GIVE IT AWAY are two of my other favorites.
So, why then, am I only giving this 4 stars and not 5 if its so damn good? Well, while I admire the sonics and the new direction the band seemed to be going in with disc, the songs, with the exception of the four I have mentioned, simply aren't as consistently strong as the ones on LAID, WHIPLASH, or MILLIONAIRES are.
Still, this disc is very good and proves, yet again, why JAMES are/were one of the most talented and underappreciated bands out there.

Once again, James has me amazed with their ability to truly create life with sound. So rare it is that musicians are able to create new sound and style as this that it is difficult to understand why they are not more appreciated here in the U.S. On "Space," Tim makes a potent vocal entrance, unique only to his own rare style of singing the Universe from the heart, and builds with the band into a wave of emotion that is nothing less than overwhelming. Like all of James's music, this is stuff you feel, as well as hear. "Falling Down," a bit more trancelike and hypnotic but with the same fluid, relaxed and from the heart vocals and overall flow. The whole album contains this flow, where the songs mesh into one continuous story and actually create one big musical masterpiece, in spite of the very different musical undertones. Just enough contrast between silky flow of great production and raw instrumentation, these guys are masters of dynamics. Do yourself a rare favor, and listen to this masterpiece while simply allowing yourself to feel... and you will understand why people sing and make music. With all this talent in one room, how can we not be pleased?

I reject any review of this CD that tries to place it below their best. I think the problem is some fans are beginning to take James for granted. Year in and year out they produce stunning melodies and songs with deep emotional resonance. They push the envelope and, yes, sometimes they fail. But even when the fail, the failures are worth listening to. In this case, there is no failure. I think this is one of the best CDs of the year. I can find little fault with any of the songs and have listened to it more than 20 times now. I'm a late convert to James--I didn't like the first CD I heard, but since then I have loved just about everything.

Not bad at all. Some of the initial reviews in the press had me worried, but what do the critics know, anyway. From the top, then: SPACE - Atmosperic beginning blossoms into (surprise!) an anthemic chorus, but it works. Not a bad way to start the proceedings. FALLING DOWN - Breezy, fresh-sounding dance song. Will this be a single soon? ENGLISH BEEFCAKE - Very cool. Spacey production and vocal effects lift a pleasant melody to greater heights. Then everything stops and the band goes into a different melody, repeated over and over. Sounds crazy but it works. JUNKIE - The lyrics make a very good point about addictions of all kinds. It's the first of three consecutive slow songs and the best. PLEASED TO MEET YOU - I know this is the title song and everything, but I would have left it off. The band seems to be desperately searching for a melody and never finds it. Instead they just get loud. Eh. THE SHINING - The album loses momentum here. This is a rather pedestrian song. The melody fairy once again has not shown up. SENORITA - The tempo picks up a bit, but it's a bit like a tank trying to fly. The helium backing vocals on the chorus work, though, effectively redeeming the song. The line about god vs. dog makes me cringe, however. GAUDI - Finally, something uptempo.Not that great, but airy and pleasant enough. WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR - Not much, apparently. This is mediocre song that seems in danger of falling apart in the middle. Fortunately, the album is about to get much better. GIVE IT AWAY - The band finally begins to edit themselves. This is a vaguely country-ish sounding tune, with a very catchy chorus melody. FINE - Now, this is great. A disciplined, minimalist pop tune with a haunting vocal. Really stands out in the bunch. Doesn't sound like anything else I can think of. Great beat, too. GETTING AWAY WITH IT - Another elegant uptempo tune. This one echoes some of their previous stuff, which is why it was selected as the first single, I suppose.
ALASKAN PIPELINE - Very nice, lush production. Needs a stronger tune on top of everything, but it is a good choice for a closer. Overall, I definitely recommend the album to old-time James fans. I think it would have made a much stronger impressios with a couple of tracks from the mid-section cut out. Then again, you can always hit the skip button.

I never would have suspected that James would top the excellent "Millionaires" album, but this is a valiant attempt. The only song I don't enjoy very much is "Junkie". "Gaudi" and "Fine" are both very very cool (make sure you get the UK import, rather than an cheaper Canadian or European copy, because otherwise you will not get "Gaudi" or "What Is It Good For", which is also a good track). "English Beefcake" may be the best James song ever. The last two tracks close the album strongly. Highly recommended!

... as the song goes. The best James album since 'Seven', this has plenty of addictive songs, 'Senorita', 'Falling Down' and 'English Beefcake' to name but a few. I'm amazed what a strong album this is, because I really wasn't too impressed with their last album, 'Millionaires'. In fact I am surprised that so many people here prefer that one.

It's a shame this is only availalble in the States an an import.

I have always found James to be a bit of the new with a wink to the past. While Laid was the group's pinnacle of their 80's work (although technically written in the early 1990's), the side project Wah-Wah (they recorded both albums at the same time in different studios) was a look forward.

The success of Laid probably ruined them. Success and the fact that James was found to have not paid the IRS a large sum of money resulted in some serious tension. (And you wondered why their albums aren't released in the US). Whiplash was recorded separately (the band in one locale, Booth in another) and the album suffered for it. While there are still good tracks, it is too melodic. It tries to make up for its lack of soul with too much hype and bandstanding.

Millionaires was the album they should have recorded. Progressive and solid from start to finish, the album has moments that make Laid seem passe and remote, an album of the 80's. With songs that brought back James' forte: danceable music that you can sing along with, the album was their best yet.

Pleased to Meet You must fall somewhere between Millionaires and Whiplash. The first three tracks continue on where Millionaires left off. "Space", "Falling Down", and "English Beefcake" are excellent material. Near the end of English Beefcake, however, there is a break and Booth begins a melody that is infectious if not completely different from the rest of the song--almost a purposeful shift back to what was "Whiplash." "Senorita", "Fine" and "Junkie" almost sound like B-tracks from Whiplash.

That is not to say that I am dissapointed. I am in a small group of U.S. James fans that have not forgotten the band. It is a good album. And I'll see them in England in early December. So if you are a fan of Laid, do not get this album. If you are a fan of Millionaires, it is worth getting.

Nevertheless the stalwart, Brit-rock-pop legend known as James has certainly paid its dues. Pleased to Meet You is their 11th album in a career spanning 18 years, and fans will be assured that the seven band members (check out the album inlay for a composite portrait of them all) are still as creative as they ever were. If you can break through the veneer of experimental approaches in this 11-song set, then you're actually in for a pleasing, if eclectic, listen. The vocals of frontman and lyricist Tim Booth stand out in this effort starting out with the electronic ambience of Space. If you want to hear the typical James sound, complete with an-themic style chorus, then Falling Down and English Beefcake meet that criteria. For a downtempo minimalist sound, listen to Junkie and Pleased to Meet You while The Shining seems to sound more old-school melodic rock. Senorita, Give It Away, Fine and the first single release Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) pretty much concentrate on the angst-style melodic tunes that James is also famed for and contain the admittedly sometimes directionless ly-rics of Booth. Ambient rock sounds close the album just as they open it with Alaskan Pipeline albeit with an atmospheric sound. Pleased to Meet You may not sound as commercial as the likes of the last album Millionaires in 1999. But the return of top British producer Brian Eno to helm the production of the album proves that, at the least, James isn't afraid of taking risks with its music and testing its fans appreciation.