Booth and the Bad Angel: The Lost Masterpiece of the '90s
How a collaboration between James' Tim Booth, Twin Peaks composer Angelo Badalamenti, and Suede's Bernard Butler created the decade's most underrated album.
Welcome back Hi-Fiers,
Last week, I took a break from deep dives and 40th anniversary album spotlights. The result was a “Band in 10 Songs” theme, which I may resurface again. This time, I want to highlight a ‘90s alternative-indie supergroup that most music fans in the US have never heard of.
Booth and the Bad Angel
Released in 1996, when Britpop was at its commercial peak, and Radiohead was rewriting the rules with OK Computer on the horizon, this dark, surreal, Lynchian fever dream of an album had a modest moment in the UK: a couple of tracks made the charts, TV airplay on Channel 4, and that prestigious Later... with Jools Holland performance. Critical acclaim. Devotion from fans of everyone involved.
But in the US? It wasn’t even a blip. A masterpiece lost in time, on the other side of the Atlantic.
The Web of Collaboration
Let’s start with the players, because this album is all about unexpected connections.
Tim Booth — frontman of James, known for his frenetic, almost possessed stage presence, his powerful voice, and lyrics steeped in spirituality and existentialism. By 1996, James was riding high commercially in both the UK and the US. Booth could have done anything. He chose to do this.
Angelo Badalamenti — composer, arranger, and the sonic architect behind David Lynch’s films. If you’ve ever felt the unsettling beauty of Twin Peaks, the dread and longing of Blue Velvet, that’s Badalamenti. His music doesn’t just score a scene; it creates atmosphere, mood, a sense that reality is always one degree off-center.
Bernard Butler — guitarist and arranger for Suede during their early, explosive Britpop years. Butler’s playing was never just accompaniment; it was architectural, melodic, and emotionally direct. He left Suede in 1994, right after their second album, and was figuring out what came next. Incidentally, that second album has since been hailed as a rock opera that never was.
Brian Eno — the wild card. Legendary producer and collaborator (Bowie, Byrne, Talking Heads, U2), Roxy Music alumnus, ambient pioneer, producer who had already worked with James using his signature unorthodox methods: challenging the band to step outside their comfort zones, throwing unexpected prompts at them mid-session to create something they wouldn’t have discovered on their own. Eno’s involvement here wasn’t front-and-center, but his touch is unmistakable.
The origin stories are pure creative obsession.
Booth was a longtime fan of David Lynch’s films and Badalamenti’s haunting soundtracks. During a live TV performance, he was asked who he would most like to collaborate with. His answer: Angelo Badalamenti. That single moment set wheels in motion. People in the industry started working to connect them. For two years, Booth and Badalamenti kept in touch by phone: Booth leaving poems, lyrics, and late-night messages on Badalamenti’s voicemail, building a creative relationship before they ever met face-to-face.
They finally met in person in 1992, when Badalamenti was in London. He came backstage after a James show, and the collaboration became inevitable.
Meanwhile, Booth saw Suede perform live and was transfixed, not by the band as a whole, but by Bernard Butler’s guitar work. He became determined to collaborate with him. According to interviews from the time, Butler even encouraged Booth to form a new band with him. But Booth ultimately returned to James.
What we got instead was this: a one-off album, a moment in time, a collaboration that would never repeat.
What It Sounds Like
Booth and the Bad Angel is indie rock refracted through a Lynchian lens. It’s surreal, sexy, and dangerous. Badalamenti’s dark, emotive soundscapes wrap around Booth’s voice like fog around streetlights. Butler’s guitar work adds both grit and grace. Eno’s influence shows up in the textures, the space, and the willingness to let atmosphere breathe.
There are echoes of Bowie, traces of T. Rex glam, but it never feels derivative. It feels like its own universe — one where David Lynch might direct a music video in a smoky cabaret, where existential dread and sensuality coexist without contradiction.
“Dance of the Bad Angels” opens the album with a slow-building intensity, Booth’s voice both vulnerable and commanding over Badalamenti’s lush orchestration.
“I Believe” became a minor UK hit, reaching number 25 on the charts. This is the most James song on the album.
“Hit Parade” this song rocks in the way 90’s Britpop rocked. It earned the duo a live performance on the acclaimed Later... with Jools Holland. It’s the most accessible track here, but it still carries that underlying unease, that sense that something beautiful is also slightly wrong.
“Fall in Love with Me” is pure seduction, but it’s the kind of seduction that might end badly. This song even made it onto a rom-com movie soundtrack of the day in 1998 or so. Since then, Tim Booth reworked it and has played it live often, as it is a crowd pleaser. The version of the song in the video is not the album version. I am in the minority, but I prefer the album version.
“Life Gets Better” features Badalamenti himself on vocals, sounding quite a bit like Peter Gabriel. One of the darker, cynical tracks on the album.
“Butterfly’s Dream” is where Bernard Butler brings the 70’s raunch/, dirty/sexy guitar sounds and inhabits this song. Where the subject range from orgies to one-night stands. But at the same time, with regret and a conscience. As someone whose lost their way, and it drifts into ambient reverie. There is a thread of spirituality that runs through all the songs.
“Old Ways,” this to me has a hint of some of that Celtic blood. Some of the earlier English/Celtic folkiness of James, some rockabilly of the Smiths. Evocative as in a callback, but not derivative. As a fan of the Manchester scene, it makes you want to dance as madly as Ian Brown, Morrissey, or Tim Booth himself.
This isn’t an album you put on in the background. It demands attention. It rewards immersion. My words can’t do justice to how the songs sound, so please listen to it and enjoy.
Why It Failed (And Why That Doesn’t Matter)
Despite critical acclaim and devotion from fans of Booth, Badalamenti, Butler, and Eno, Booth and the Bad Angel sold poorly. In 1996, the album didn’t fit anywhere. It was too cinematic for indie rock, too rock for film score fans, too dark and strange for Britpop radio. It existed in the gaps between genres, and the market didn’t know what to do with it.
There were talks of future albums. Booth and Badalamenti had found something rare in their collaboration, a creative chemistry that felt limitless. But Angelo Badalamenti’s passing in 2022 closed that door permanently. The future albums will never exist.
And yet, the album endures. It’s a cult classic in the truest sense: discovered slowly, loved deeply, passed along like a secret between those who understand. It’s the kind of album that finds you when you need it, not when the algorithm tells you to listen.
Why It Matters
This album represents something rare: collaboration as creative risk. Booth didn’t need to make this record. He was commercially successful, artistically respected. He could have played it safe. Instead, he chased an obsession: Butler’s guitar work at a Suede show, Badalamenti’s film scores, the idea that something stranger and more beautiful might be possible if he stepped outside the expected path.
In an era where we talk endlessly about “creative freedom” and “artistic vision,” Booth and the Bad Angel is proof of what that actually looks like. It’s not about commercial success. It’s about making something that didn’t exist before, something that couldn’t exist without these specific people in this specific moment.
The album failed by every conventional metric. And it succeeded by every measure that actually matters.
Before You Go…
Missed last week? I wrote about The Church in 10 Songs — tracing their evolution across four albums.
Continue the conversation. What’s your take on Booth and the Bad Angel? Ever heard it? Want to now? Drop a comment or share this with someone who loves discovering lost classics.
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Continuing your good work here — giving due to under appreciated albums! This is really good and I’m surprised it didn’t have more of an impact!
Also, if you have not already, you might want to check out David Lynch and Chrystabell’s collaboration This Train. It came to mind while I was reading this, because it seems to occupy a similarly intriguing space between mood, atmosphere, and songcraft.