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King James Version is the second studio album by American rock band Harvey Danger, released on September 12, 2000 through London-Sire Records. Following the success of the band's debut album Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? and its smash hit single "Flagpole Sitta", Harvey Danger returned home from touring in December 1998 and commenced work on what was to become their major label debut album. King James Version was first recorded between March and April 1999 with producer John Goodmanson at Bearsville Sound Studio in Woodstock, New York, with additional recording taking place at Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington and at John & Stu's Place in Seattle, Washington. Corporate restructurings involving Harvey Danger's record label, London Recordings USA, delayed the release of King James Version, which resulted in the band continuing to work on the album further until late February 2000, and following its completion the band signed to London-Sire, who agreed to release the album in July 2000.

King James Version
Studio album by Harvey Danger
Released	September 12, 2000
Recorded	c. March 1999 – February 2000
Studio	Bearsville Sound (Woodstock, New York) Bear Creek Studio (Woodinville, Washington) John & Stu's Place (Seattle, Washington)
Genre	Indie rock alternative rock
Length	46:29
Label	London-Sire
Producer	John Goodmanson · Harvey Danger
Harvey Danger chronology
Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? (1997) King James Version (2000) Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas (Sometimes) (2004)
Singles from King James Version
"Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" Released: August 2000

King James Version, while predominantly an indie rock and alternative rock album, encompasses a variety of rock music styles, and its ambitious direction stemmed from the band's fears of being dismissed as a one-hit wonder by critics, and their wishes to counteract that. The album's lyrics discuss "the conflict between faith and skepticism", and feature numerous allusions to popular culture, historical figures and literature.

Although King James Version received generally favourable reviews from critics, who praised its ambitious musical direction and called it an improvement over the band's debut, it was a catastrophic commercial flop and only managed to shift 25,000 copies in the United States by 2005.[1] Harvey Danger blamed London-Sire's poor promotion and distribution of King James Version as the reasons for its poor commercial performance, and its failure resulted in the band taking a three-year hiatus from 2001 to 2004. King James Version has continued to receive praise in the years following its release, and has retrospectively been described as an overlooked classic by several publications. King James Version is the last Harvey Danger album to feature drummer Evan Sult.

Background

Harvey Danger formed in 1992, and recorded a demo tape in 1996 to send to major labels. While the demo failed to garner any interest from major labels, it attracted the attention of Greg Glover, an intern at the US division of London Recordings, who released their debut studio album, Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?, through his record label, the Arena Rock Recording Company, in July 1997. While not a strong success upon its initial release, the album's second track, "Flagpole Sitta", began receiving airplay from several college radio stations, and soon after Harvey Danger became the subject of a major label bidding war, with the band ultimately deciding to sign to London's Slash Records imprint in March 1998, where Glover had just been hired.[2] Upon the wider re-release of Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? and "Flagpole Sitta" as a single in April 1998,[3] "Flagpole Sitta" became a hit, propelling Harvey Danger into the mainstream and pushing Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? to number 70 on the Billboard 200.[4] The album went on to sell over 500,000 copies in the United States, and in February 1999 was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[1][5] Slash/London issued a follow-up single, "Private Helicopter", in October 1998;[6] the single performed poorly, not reaching any Billboard charts, and soon after Harvey Danger ceased touring and returned home in November 1998.[7][8][9]

After returning home, the members of Harvey Danger took a brief break from music for the holidays. While the band initially considered breaking up during this small hiatus, they decided against it and began writing new material for their next album in December 1998.[8][9] The band, determined to distance themselves from the overshadowing success of "Flagpole Sitta", deliberately began writing less commercial-sounding and more creatively ambitious songs. "Our stated position was that we were never going to write another song like 'Flagpole Sitta.' ", explained vocalist Sean Nelson; "We would write long seven-minute slow songs without a chorus just to prove we were more than this hit single. It tweaks your entire consciousness to be identified by only one song when you are so dead set on being recognized for all the other things you have to offer."[1] Harvey Danger also considered their upcoming album to be their first "real" album, as Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? was "bascially [sic] a bunch of demos recorded on the cheap".[8]

Writing and recording

After completing work on the album's demos in February 1999, Harvey Danger travelled to Woodstock, New York in early March 1999 to record the basic tracks for King James Version at Bearsville Sound with producer John Goodmanson, who had also produced Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?. Afterwards, the band returned to Washington to record overdubs for the album at John & Stu's Place in Seattle and at Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville. Recording was completed in April 1999,[10] and following this the band travelled to Los Angeles, California to mix the album at The Village Recorder on May 17, 1999.[11][12]

Harvey Danger initially hoped that King James Version would be released in August/September 1999, but owing to a series of corporate mergers and restructurings, the album was indefinitely shelved. Universal Music Group, whom had recently merged with London's parent company, PolyGram, in December 1998,[13] had sold London Recordings' US division to Warner Music Group, and in August 1999 Warner Music Group announced that it would be merging London with its Sire Records Group to create London-Sire Records.[14] The merger led to King James Version being left in release limbo and was further delayed after a contractual dispute arose between London and UMG over the band's contract, which led to London losing the rights over the band's contract and left Harvey Danger in a "corporate black hole" and unsure if King James Version would even be released.[7][15] Amidst their struggles with the corporate shakeups, the members of Harvey Danger went to work on their own individual projects, which gave the bandmembers some time to reflect on their personal lives. When the band came back and revisited the album with a different perspective, they decided to re-work, and write new songs for, King James Version. Nelson described this period as the album's "second gestation period", and Harvey Danger continued to revise the album until they were satisfied, with the band finishing recording in late February 2000. The band then re-mixed several of the album's songs in June 2000 at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, B.C.[10][12][16][17]

Composition

Music

Musically, King James Version has been described as an indie rock[18] and alternative rock[19] release. Some reviewers also noted influences of pop rock,[20] power pop,[19] rockabilly[21] and punk rock[22] throughout the album's tracks. In contrast to the band's debut album, King James Version features a less grungy and aggressive sound, and uses a wider variety of instruments, including the extensive use of keyboards, piano, pump organ, cello and viola throughout the album.[9] "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" was described by Billboard as a featuring a "laid-back feel complete with 80's retro guitar effects."[23] "Pike St./Park Slope" is a sombre piano ballad which was compared to the works of Ben Folds.[22][24] "Underground" is a "radically rearranged" cover of a song by the Seattle band This Busy Monster.[17]

The musical direction of King James Version changed several times throughout its conception, with the album initially planned on being a "quiet anti-pop record".[9][25] However, after hearing about the success the English rock band Radiohead had found with their 1997 album OK Computer, which Nelson described as the "ultimate one-hit wonder redemption narrative", the band scrapped this idea and felt as though they had to make a "great leap forward, artistically, and do something really ambitious" if they were to maintain their credibility.[25] However, as Harvey Danger were just a "garage band" according to Nelson, and not able to figure out how to reach Radiohead's creative and technical heights, the band began to strip back their arrangements. Regardless, Nelson still credited OK Computer as an influence on the album's overall atmosphere. "It certainly was no OK Computer, though there are a couple of moments where we obviously are reaching for that kind of faux-epic sound. I’ve listened to King James Version a lot and I don’t know what the hell it sounds like."[25]

Lyrics

The lyrics on King James Version, written solely by Nelson, are heavily philosophical and ambiguous, and primarily discuss "the conflict between faith and skepticism".[17][26] The album's lyrics are often humorous, cynical, sarcastic or deadpan in nature and reference various references to historical popular culture as well as name-dropping various popular figures and musicians, such as Jesus, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, the Malboro Man and Morrissey. Nelson also incorporated the use of multiple literary devices into the album's songs, especially with the use of first person, multiple and unreliable narrators, as well as using the album's lyrics as dialogues. Nelson described the album as being "very personal, but not autobiographical", and "more in the way of character study than autobiographical revelation."[17] The album's opening track, "Meetings with Remarkable Men (Show Me the Hero)", is about a guy "looking for somebody to be a disciple of. Jesus doesn't work, Morrissey doesn't work, and Kip Winger is the only one who provides a voice of reason."[27] "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" directly alludes to Sweetheart of the Rodeo by The Byrds, and also references "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" by The Velvet Underground.[28]

The heavily referential nature of King James Version's lyrics was inspired by the works of Frederic Tuten, an American novelist known for his style of referencing to the past vis-a-vis to the present in his works.[29] "I feel that's a huge part of listening to rock n' roll music. As a listener, when I want to talk about anything with my friends, I can casually say half a line from any of a hundred songs and they know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't have to elucidate [(explain)] the sentiment any further. It's admitting rock songs can be a response to rock songs, and not necessarily be just so referential that they're just about rock songs."[9] Nelson thanks Tuten in the album's liner notes, and also thanks novelist Philip Roth and Le Show by Harry Shearer.[12] To further connect with the album's recurring theme of referencing other musicians and people, King James Version features an array of backup vocalists, including Grant Lee Buffallo's Grant-Lee Phillips and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard, in order to "reflect many, many voices." Nelson deliberately avoided writing about the band's struggles with their success, believing the subject to be "stupid and irrelevant to most people that listen to music."[9]

Title and packaging

The album's title of King James Version is both a reference to the King James Version of the Bible, and to the album's "second gestation period". Nelson described the album's title as referring to "coming through a convoluted process and arriving at a version of the album and the band that feels sort of definitive."[17]

The album's artwork was done by Tae Won Yu; Nelson described the artwork as an expression of "[the] band's fractured mental and psychic state, or relationship to ourselves, our city, our project, and each other."[10] He also described the artwork as "beautiful/terrible/perfect" and "a mess", which he attributed to the band "[micromanaging Tae Won Yu] into the ground", and said that it was printed with the wrong shade of blue.[10][15]

Release and promotion

Following the album's completion, Harvey Danger shopped King James Version around to several other labels on the UMG grapevine, but were systematically reviewed and rejected by all of them.[9][16] Thankfully, Harvey Danger were able to re-sign with their "new/old" label, London-Sire Records, in June 2000.[16] On July 6, 2000, Harvey Danger announced on their website that King James Version had now been fully sequenced, mastered and approved by London-Sire, and unveiled the new album's title and release date. Prior to the album's release, Harvey Danger expanded into a sextet with the introduction of guitarist Mike Squires and keyboard player John Roderick, in an effort to improve the quality of band's live shows.[30][31]

King James Version was released exclusively in the United States and Canada on September 12, 2000. Alongside the album, a self-titled EP, containing three B-sides from the King James Version sessions, was sold with purchases of the album exclusively at Circuit City stores, limited to 3,000 copies.[16] The EP's songs were later included in the band's 2009 compilation album Dead Sea Scrolls. Nelson attempted to get King James Version (including its B-sides) released on vinyl through Barsuk Records, who he was a partner of, but these plans fell through due to legal issues surrounding licensing.[7][15]

King James Version was promoted with the release of one single, "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo", which was released to radio sometime in August 2000. The band filmed a music video for the song, directed by Evan Bernard, in Los Angeles, California on August 15 and 16, 2000.[16] The music video was due to premiere on MTV's 120 Minutes on September 24, 2000, but an MTV intern played the music video for "Flagpole Sitta" by accident instead. MTV responded to the band's complaints by claiming that the video for "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" had received poor test screenings, and pulled it from rotation.[26][32] The band also made a televised appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn performing the song on October 18, 2000, with John Roderick filling in for Aaron Huffman on bass due to Huffman becoming ill.[30] The song "Authenticity" was touted by the band as the album's second single, owing to its inclusions in the soundtracks of Dude, Where's My Car? (2000) and Soul Survivors (2001), but this ultimately never occurred.[30]

Harvey Danger initially embarked on a national tour across the United States throughout the first half of September 2000 in support of King James Version, including a performance in Montreal, Quebec and an acoustic set at Tower Records in Seattle on September 12th.[33] From October 7th to October 27th, 2000, Harvey Danger toured as an opening act for the pop-punk band SR-71, alongside the power pop band Wheatus, who acted as the band's opening act on some of the SR-71 tour dates.[34][35] Following the end of the band's tour with SR-71, London-Sire pulled the band's touring support, leaving Harvey Danger unable to tour nationally and financially constrained to the Pacific Northwest of the US. The lack of touring support meant that Harvey Danger was forced to turn down a offer to tour as an opening act for The Pretenders.[25]

The remainder of the band's shows in 2000 took place in the band's hometown of Seattle during late December, where the band performed three songs for the Screaming Santa's X-Mas Show at the I-Spy on December 23rd, and performed a New Years' Eve show at Consolidated Works.[36] From March 22nd to the 24th, 2001, Harvey Danger performed as an opener for Alien Crime Syndicate. The band played their final show of that year on April 21, 2001, playing alongside Hazel and Quasi.[37]

Commercial performance

King James Version sold incredibly poorly upon its release, with the album failing to chart on the US Billboard 200 chart, although the single "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" managed to chart at number 27 on the Alternative Airplay chart.[4] By 2005, King James Version had reportedly sold 25,000 copies in the United States, a number which paled in comparison to the sales of Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?, which had sold over 500,000 copies by the same date.[1]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[38]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[22]
Melodic	[19]
Rolling Stone	[39]
Wall of Sound	74/100[40]

Contemporary reviews

King James Version received generally favourable reviews from critics at the time of its release. Writing for Wall of Sound, Bob Remstein praised the band's "smart-and-loud" sound, and while he felt that Sean Nelson's lyrics "occasionally overreach[ed]", their "outward cleverness" often cancelled out their negative effects, and ultimately praised the album as "fairly infectious, and somewhat deep."[24] James Sullivan of Entertainment Weekly was somewhat favourable of King James Version, describing the album as "caustic" and "too clever by half, but that's a compliment."[22] Writing for Rolling Stone magazine, David Wilid called the album "barbed", but praised the album as "a step forward in both ambition and accomplishment" from their debut album, describing the album as "exceptionally tuneful postmodern pop in the wry tradition of XTC and the Posies".[20]

Par Winberg of Melodic wrote that, while the album did not immediately connect with him, it grew on him following multiple listens, and described the album as "Rolling Stones with a modern rock costume".[19] Writing about the album in passing, Eric Weisbard of SPIN described King James Version as "[kicking] their debut album's ass", and praised the Nelson's greater confidence as a frontman and band's improved cohesiveness. However, he also questioned whether the album's "witty swagger and rejection of novelty grade goofiness" would "sail over the heads of radio and the general public."[27]

Retrospective assessments

Despite being overlooked upon its release, King James Version's reputation has improved in the years since its release, and has since been described as an underappreciated cult classic of the indie rock genre. Writing about the album and its legacy in 2013, Evan Sawdey of PopMatters wrote;

"Even though Little By Little garnered considerable acclaim and made the band become known for more than just “Flagpole Sitta”, it’s amazing how many people have glossed over King James Version altogether. When you sit down and think about it, though, it’s not really that surprising: wedged between their “commercial peak” and “artistic rebirth,” this little album got lost due to unfortunate circumstance more than anything else. Yet, as the years have gone on, it’s gradually found one hell of an audience. People have picked up it casually — via recommendations from friends, impulse budget-bin purchases, or otherwise — and, slowly and surely over the years, the album got discovered as what it is: one of the greatest rock albums of the decade."[21]

Alex Young of Consequence of Sound lauded King James Version as the "most underappreciated album of 2000", writing, "...everyone should give King James Version a fighting chance because it is by far their best recording. It’s digest-able, approachable, funny, catchy and if not for certain powers that be or better timing they may have been placed higher in most collections alongside other Seattle superstars."[41] NPR Music also praised the album, describing it as "ambitious and frequently beautiful" and having "aged exceptionally well" in the years following its release.[42] Myles Griffin of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal labelled the album as "one of the most creative and enjoyable rock albums of the decade" in 2008.[43]

Accolades

Publication	Country	Accolade	Year	Rank
Riverfront Times	United States	Six Best Sophomore Albums By One Hit Wonders[44]	2012	6
PopMatters	United States	The 100 Best Albums of the 2000s[45]	2020	73

Aftermath

The members of Harvey Danger were greatly upset by the failure of King James Version, which they attributed to London-Sire's ineffectual marketing and distribution of the album, and felt as though the album had not truly been "released". "Technically it was released, but it was released so poorly and haphazardly promoted that we just felt we had been robbed of an experience that was important to us."[1]

As a result of the album's failure, which Nelson described as "life altering", the members of Harvey Danger decided to split up. "We inevitably started hating each other, because who else was there to hate? We broke up because we had nothing else to say to each other at that point."[1][15] The band's hiatus, which started after the band played their last show in April 2001, lasted until April 2004. During the hiatus, the members of the band pursued a number of musical and non-musical endeavours, with Nelson becoming a movie critic for the Seattle bi-weekly newspaper The Stranger and later forming a new band with Roderick, The Long Winters, in 2002, as well as becoming a business partner with Barsuk Records. He later left The Long Winters so he could start work on a solo album, which led to him reconnecting with guitarist Jeff Lin and bassist Aaron Huffman, and prompted the band to reunite.[46] Drummer Evan Sult, who had moved to Chicago, Illinois during the hiatus and joined the indie rock band Bound Stems,[47] declined to join the band's reunion, and was subsequently replaced by Michael Welke for the rest of the band's existence until their breakup in 2009.[32][48] The negative experiences regarding the release and promotion of King James Version influenced the band's choice to release their follow up album, Little by Little... (2005), for free on the band's website, which Nelson said gave the band "that sense of satisfaction or closure that comes from making a record and releasing it to the public. They either embrace it or don't, but at least they'll have the option of noticing it this time."[46][49]

Sean Nelson began to recognise King James Version's status as a "cult gem" in the years following its release, which allowed him to move on from the negative experiences of the album's release. "I'd met lots of people over the years who told me they knew of [King James Version], had bought it for a penny on eBay, had found it one evening out someone's coffee table, had discovered an entire landfill made out of it, and it always made me grateful. But really going out into the world and seeing the way people had internalized the songs, knew every word, leaped for joy when the opening chords rang out—it simply alleviated several years' worth of compounded anxiety and allowed me to move on."[10][15]

Harvey Danger performed King James Version in its entirety on March 7, 2008, at The Triple Door in Seattle, Washington as part of a set of concerts commemorating the 10th anniversary of Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?.[50] Ten out of the album's twelve songs (excluding "You Miss the Point Completely I Get the Point Exactly" and "(This Is) The Thrilling Conversation You've Been Waiting For") were played by Harvey Danger at their last ever show at The Crocodile Café in Seattle on August 31, 2009.[48]

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[12][52]

Harvey Danger

• Sean Nelson – Lead and backing vocals, keyboards, melodian, tambourine, triangle
• Jeff J. Lin – guitar, piano, Hammond organ, theremin, xylophone, "silver box o' death", string arrangements
• Aaron Huffman – bass guitar, guitar, pipe organ, vibraphone
• Evan Sult – drums

Additional musicians

Production

Release history

Region	Date	Label	Format	Ref.
United States	September 12, 2000	London-Sire	CD, DL	[30]
Canada

Notes

References

External links

• Harvey Danger's official site
• The Annotated King James Version (Harvey Danger), featuring the album's lyrics and allusions.

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