James Blunt

I love this review of his new CD from the Scotsman. Why does one man inspire such strong feelings? Place me firmly in the hate camp, yet, like Nickelback, I seem to know all the words to every single song he has released. Why is that? Smart songwriting? Radio overplay? I think the latter.

POP
JAMES BLUNT: ALL THE LOST SOULS **


ATLANTIC, £12.99
IF SO many people profess to hate James Blunt - in a disproportionately strong reaction for a performer so insipid - how on earth did he manage to net the biggest-selling album of the millennium so far? He just doesn't seem like the type to inspire extreme reactions, positive or negative. Apart from a certain irritating quaver in his feeble voice, he is as easy to zone out as a dull song playing on the radio. Often, he is the dull song playing on the radio.
Unsurprisingly, 11 million album sales down the line, he hasn't changed his tune. All The Lost Souls is another banal parade of absent-minded melodies, hand-crafted blandness and the kind of vaguely portentous lyrics which are either plain terrible or just knowingly open enough to allow for the listener's own misty-eyed interpretation.
Lead single 1973 dribbles on about nostalgia so much that Blunt has actually turned into wet 1970s piano man Gilbert O'Sullivan by the next track. The pseudo-spiritual I'll Take Everything is marginally more overwrought, and he has actually started howling by the time he reaches Same Mistake, which is presumably what must pass for an anthem on this album. I Really Want You is just as bad an example of his cod philosophising, while the more intelligible Carry You Home sounds custom-written to replace Wind Beneath Your Wings as a funeral favourite.
This album boasts nothing as purposeful as that one about Kosovo from Back To Bedlam, but nor does it bother to have any fun. Give Me Some Love at least attempts to get jaunty with those all-pervasive 70s influences, but Scissor Sisters will always do a catchier impersonation of Elton John. With typical Blunt instrumentation, he can't even muster a big finish, just a fading piano chord.