Monday, October 26, 2009

The Millions - M is for Millions (1991, Smash)

I can't believe I let this one slip by on the blog for all these years. Signed to the same tiny Polygram subsidiary Chris Mars was on back in the early '90s, Lincoln, NE's completely neglected Millions made this debut corker of an album for the seemingly unsupportive label. Though there's no denying mouthpiece Lori Allison by far and away steals The Millions collective spotlight, Harry Dingman III's chimey, resonating fretwork is featured almost as prominently. (BTW, the band's lineup also featured For Against drummer, Greg Hill). The Primitive's meet U2? Sorta. The Millions commercial aspirations were blatantly obvious, but M is for Millions big budget studio sheen hardly detracts from it's stirring songcraft, housing a pair of 'perfect 10s,' "Smiling and Shaking" and "Sometimes," both worth the band's namesake in currency, as well as cuts like "Riga (Freedom)" and "Ordinary Men," that fall just shy of that lofty ranking. After exiting Polygram the Millions independently released an utterly forgettable and unrepresentative follow-up, Raquel which I would recommend to no one. Instead, chase down M is for Millions with some early demos on their posthumously created Myspace page.

An expanded version is available here.

6 comments:

Ben said...

do you have the FUZZY s/t LP? great record!

Garth Johnson said...

Yay Millions! I grew up in Lincoln going to their shows. They had a band before the Millions called the "New Brass Guns" (a groaner of a pun on "Nebraskans"). Thanks for posting this!

johnnybgoode said...

any chance you might upload the other 2 killjoy cd's? I really enjoyed the first one!

spavid said...

The Millions were pretty damn impressive, barring that second album mentioned in my post. Must have been great live back in the day.

I'll see about getting the Fuzzy album and more Killjoys up soon.

Unknown said...

I live in St. Louis & saw The Millions at an old alternative club, "The Otherworld". It snowed that night & the group wasn't well known so there were approximately 20 people total at the show.

I knew of the group due to a college friend from NE.

I spent the whole night dancing & singing to every song. Lori made several comments during the show towards me & even pulled me onstage for "West".

I am now 40 & still vividly remember everything about the show.

Defmall said...

This is one of my favorite albums, and I always regretted that they didnt fare better.

While the follow up album was awful, there was 1 track on it I LOVED. Unfortuantely, the name escapes me at the moment...