I'd like to disagree with the chap who says this wasn't worth buying. The compilation was aimed to help fans fill holes in their collections.

This album has the following :

Lazy - only ever released previously on CD on the extremely rare first Japanese edition of Gold Mother

Once A Friend - only ever released on the vinyl 12" of Ring The Bells

So Long Marianne - only ever released on a Leonard Cohen covers album "I'm Your Fan"

Confusion - only ever released on the "Randall and Hopkirk Deceased" soundtrack.

Coffee And Toast - only ever available as a download off the multimedia element of Pleased To Meet You. This is a different and superior mix to that version

Some of the versions of tracks on here didn't end up being the ones I proposed for some reason - Gold Mother, I Know What I'm Here For, Seven, Out To Get You, which would have made this even more a collector's choice. But to say there's nothing worth buying for a James fan is simply wrong.

For ??3.33 how can you go wrong?

James were the best band to come out of the late 80's early 90's Madchester scene. They had a big hit with Sit Down, but that might have been the beginning of the end for them, as people moved on. However, they came back many times with new, creative sounds always accompanied by singer Tim Booth's "religious" / "spiritual" leanings reflected in his lyrics.

Classics such as "She's A Star", "Sometimes" and "Laid" are here along with a few hidden classics that you might not know. If you have all the James albums from Stutter onwards you might not need this album, but as it is a good collection of their songs in a budget format, why not?

There's many a band today who could learn from James and try to mean what they sing, which Tim Booth always did. The rest of the band are and have always been great musicians and their music needs to be heard.

As a diehard James fan, I was slightly disappointed that their first output for three years was just another compilation. However this shouldn't detract from the merits of the Collection itself, which is actually pretty good. They seem to have resisted the temptation just to make this another "Best of", so while you'll find the obvious Laid, Sit Down, She's a Star etc here, there are also lesser-known tracks like Lazy and Coffee and Toast along with some of the better songs from Millionaires and Pleased to Meet You, both released post- Best Of.

As a representation of James' work, it's pretty good. However by it's nature it's not always their best material, so if you just want a compilation of James' greatest hits, the Best of is probably better. Likewise, if you're a huge fan who's already got all the albums, there's not a lot of point in getting this (though some of the songs have different recordings to the album versions).