Jim James was on the verge of some type of big time surge somewhere between Ze and Evil Urges and while it is interesting that he didn't get there, it is more interesting that his solo album, the pompously named Regions of Light and Sound of God which suggests a major statement but is actually a lo-fi new funk digital doodgery.
It actually isn't bad, in its own unassuming way it is an ephemeral but not unpleasant experience. Unlike Circuital -a major disaster of epic proportions that curtailed their forward motion and had MMJ back tracking with an all for art for art's sake while the usual suspects gave it 3 and a half stars (or 7.97 or some such nonsense) and tried to forgive the self-important suckers their sins because, hey, they were Born Again Blue Staters.
Interesting, but what is interesting is that nether flops came within a million miles of derailing Jim's career and another three crap albums won't do it any way because in ten short years James has gotten to the point where Springsteen found himself in 1999: SALES DON'T MATTER, CRAPPY ALBUMS DON'T MATTER, IT ISN'T A RECORDED WORLD FOR ROCK AND ROLL STARS.
James can do what Bruce and U2 and just about everybody else who pretends to matter does: play 75% hits, 25% new stuff and pretend they aren't an oldies act. And it would be nice to blame the distribution business for turning rock albums into summer movies where they have one week to prove their value before they are assigned to the scrap heap, but that's only part of the story. Albums sell as follows.
1. Fan buying artists new albums.
2. Buzz via other media
and
3. Coattails of hit singles.
Jim James has had one of the above for the past through years, good for moving a couple 100K of albums (half of that for the solo stuff) but no way to run a recording career. There is a reason why MMJ doesn't add to their fan base: their recorded music has sucked for the past five years.