James

With over 25 million albums sold throughout their 42-year career, the legendary Manchester band James stands among the most successful and beloved alternative rock bands of their time, both commercially and artistically. During the 1980s, they built a devoted following around compulsive art-rock songs like ‘Johnny Yen,’ but it was in the 1990s that they achieved chart success with their major label debut album, Gold Mother. Tracks like ‘Come Home,’ ‘Sit Down,’ ‘Sound,’ ‘Sometimes (Lester Piggott),’ and ‘Laid’ catapulted them to the top of the charts, uniting the early 90s generation with euphoric anthems about comfort, love, sex, loss, and frustration with the world’s ills.

The band’s fifth album, Laid – the first in a series produced by Brian Eno – brought them to the US charts, marking the beginning of their international recognition. Subsequent successful albums like Whiplash (1997), Millionaires (1999), and Pleased to Meet You (2001) solidified their position as one of the standout acts of the 1990s, adding hits like ‘Tomorrow,’ ‘She’s a Star,’ ‘Just Like Fred Astaire,’ and ‘Getting Away with It (All Messed Up)’ to their repertoire.

After a six-year hiatus starting in December 2001, the band reunited in 2007, and their comeback was met with renewed success that suggested they had never left. James’s second era, starting with Hey Ma in 2008, brought them more Top 20 album hits and faster ticket sales than in their initial period, further cementing their status as one of the most influential bands in the music scene. With albums like La Petite Mort (2014), Girl at the End of the World (2016), Living in Extraordinary Times (2018), All the Colours of You (2021), and the recent Yummy, James has continued to explore relevant themes such as US politics, artificial intelligence technology, and conspiracy theories, always maintaining their distinctive sound and unyielding spirit in the face of contemporary challenges.