Dorks And Losers

The most well known fact of James Blunt’s life is that he served as a cap­tain in the British army, even on a NATO peace­keep­ing mis­sion in Kosovo. The lesser-known fact is that he can really carry a melody. With his debut album Back To Bed­lam, James rein­vig­o­rates pop music by uti­liz­ing many dif­fer­ent sounds like R&B and soul. I know, it’s been done before, but how many of those per­form­ers were mil­i­tary veterans?

What sep­a­rates Blunt from other singer-songwriters like John Mayer and Howie Day is his mem­o­rable voice. The music should really be what sep­a­rates artists from one another, but hav­ing a dis­tinct voice helps too. Adult pop is the best way to describe the com­bi­na­tion of Blunt’s song­writ­ing abil­i­ties and mushy vocals.

Back To Bed­lam seems slightly more mature and sophis­ti­cated than your aver­age pop album. With the mon­ster hit “You’re Beau­ti­ful,” Blunt is able to exfo­li­ate the ten­sion and vul­ner­a­bil­ity that come with love and sim­plify love with the hon­est and pas­sion­ate words “you’re beau­ti­ful.” Love is a preva­lent theme through­out the album from the open­ing track “High” with its per­sis­tent luby duby lyrics (“some­times it’s hard to believe you remem­ber me”).

Blunt uses a vari­ety of sounds to spread his mes­sages of love and loss. He tries hip hop in the verses of “Wise­men,” mixes jazz and soul in “So Long, Jimmy,” and does his best Gavin DeGraw imper­son­ation in “Billy.” How­ever, bal­lads are what he does best and the gem of the 10 tracks is “Good­bye My Lover,” with its sim­ple piano melody and sur­pris­ingly mov­ing vocals. I don’t think that James has the best singing voice, but he does use what he has well to com­ple­ment the piano to cre­ate a heart­felt love letter.

Although “Cry” sounds ordi­nary and generic, “No Brav­ery” is both com­pelling and relent­ing. The album’s focus is very sin­gu­lar, and hope­fully time and expe­ri­ence will help Blunt branch out into other direc­tions of theme. As a debut, Back To Bed­lam works very well in show­ing the world what James Blunt sounds like. His next album should luck­ily show the world what kind of musi­cian that James Blunt wants to be. No pres­sure, honestly.

[photo via Weblo]

[photo via Ask Men]
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Track list:

1. High
2. You’re Beau­ti­ful
3. Wise­men
4. Good­bye My Lover
5. Tears And Rain
6. Out Of My Mind
7. So Long, Jimmy
8. Billy
9. Cry
10. No Bravery

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