The Indie Anthology 71: essential songs

Back with our Anthology and more than ready to write down our humble tribute to one hell of a band, with a long and superb career that, inexplicably, has always been ranked as a "second-class" act. Sit down, get your headphones on and waltz around with one of the greatest pop groups. Here's James calling!

Song: Runaground
Artist: James
Year: 1998

A tone of anthemic tunes, a zillion of immediate, contagious pop hooks, a killer live show (please come back to Barcelona soon!), a superb frontman with an incredible voice in the charismatic Tim Booth (from the sweetest melancholy to the most exhilarating joy in a matter of seconds). I will never understand why James has never made it into these ubiquitious "best-of-lists" (not even close of the top positions and, I'm afraid, a rather-to-vastly unknown band outside UK). They have everything and proved it on a very constant basis for many many years. I discovered them by the time 'The best of...' came out, with my brother and I getting so impressed with tunes like 'She's a star' or 'Runaground' we recorded them in as many "Compilation Music Clips" (those were the VHS times, kids) as we could. I'm choosing 'Runaground' it partly because it was the first one that got me completely, and partly because I simply cannot choose in which James' tune is my favourite. That guitar line, the growing tension, the way Booth sings, and how it explodes... Here was a band in which you could (can) hear hints of R.E.M.'s, U2, Pulp, The Smiths, Housemartins, the Britpop's efervescence, Madchester... altogether without being exactly any of them. They were and still are (which is amazing) exciting. And I'm sure they will as long as they want. Long live James!