Pleased to Meet You is the ninth studio album by James. The album was released in July 2001 via Mercury Records. Linked by themes of addiction, unrequited love, growing-up and parenthood, the album is crammed full of new material that follows the style and formula of some of their greatest work from the last three decades. The songs on Pleased to Meet You were all played out for live audiences before the band entered the studio, making this a tried and tested album but without usual loss of creative autonomy. Booth's trademark lyrics are just as surreal and contemporary as ever - Junkie is a weird but sincere attack on capitalism's intensified grip on everyday life, ("chocolate, kisses, Pokémon, hit em' while they're young"). The influence of album producer and long-term collaborator Brian Eno can also be heard from the album starter Space to the eerie but ambient overture. The 80s-synth style Gaudi is a direct throwback to 1982, the year the band formed. This is a cumulative collection of all that's great about James.