James, Blunt me!

When someone mentions the James Blunt, one would harken back to the year 2005, where he slowly stripped his clothes in the pearly white snow, lip syncing “You’re Beautiful” in all his mopped hair glory, and proceeding to jump in the icy cold waters in Mallorca, Spain.

The song itself proved to be a huge hit, and almost everyone who had access to a radio heard of “You’re Beautiful” itself. Depicting a man who saw his ex girlfriend with another man in a train station, the lyrics were simple enough for a young teen to deduce, and an older adult to take a spanner and hit the radio as hard as he or she can. While the song would continue its run for the rest of 2005 and early 2006, the song proved to also be a bane to his career, for James Blunt was forever known as that ‘You’re Beautiful guy’.

If anything, Blunt’s endurance for criticisms has been nothing short of astonishing. A poll conducted in 2008 deemed him as the most hated man in Europe – only 3 years after bursting out of the seams, becoming the pop sensation of the mid 00’s. There were apparently more people hating him just because of “You’re Beautiful” playing in the airwaves than people hating the then-notorious Oasis, when the Gallagher brothers were on the verge of breaking up the band (which they eventually did). It was, and still is, hard being a James Blunt fan when the critics take up their tiki torches and ready to burn down Blunt’s career.

But how could we possibly hate Blunt? Handsome, a near to posh background, married to the granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Wellington, living on one of the most beautiful island in the world (Ibiza) and having the voice of an angel. He is, in fact, the British Tom Cruise, but Tom Cruise never had four albums out and being Twitter’s reigning banter king.

fester and exist in this Internet era, Blunt is constantly a part of the circle-jerking, sometimes being called a failure in music or even a hack, being in the music scene in the first place due to him having a relatively easy life, being in a military family. In an article in Spin off, he mentioned that “I think it’s always worth remembering that online is one thing and there’s a real world out there, and the real world is probably more important”. This motif has stayed by Blunt for half his career, allowing him to sift through the negativities and still placing him as relevant in this competitive music scene.

If anything, his patience has derived from serving the Army in 1996. His accolades surprised even me as I type this; being named a Captain, participating in the Kosovo War by volunteering in the Blues & Royals squadron, being posted to the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment in London as the Queen’s Guard, and even standing guard during the Queen Mother’s funeral. His career choice from army to musician was a definite eye opener, but let’s face it; if he did not, there would be one less person to hate just because he has talent, no?

If anything, his patience has derived from serving the Army in 1996. His accolades surprised even me as I type this; being named a Captain, participating in the Kosovo War by volunteering in the Blues & Royals squadron, being posted to the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment in London as the Queen’s Guard, and even standing guard during the Queen Mother’s funeral. His career choice from army to musician was a definite eye opener, but let’s face it; if he did not, there would be one less person to hate just because he has talent, no?

Besides having a decorated Army career and being the echelon of wit and sarcasm in Twitter, Blunt himself is also a philanthropist, being a hearty patron of Help for Heroes, a charity that rehabilitates wounded British soldiers. He is even an environmentally conscious person, screening the trailer for An Inconvenient Truth in concerts during the first years of his musical career, and performed in the Live Earth concert in 2007. How could you hate him now?

How?

Perhaps one may point to the ever expanding range of James Blunt’s music range. For the first four albums before his most recent one, The Afterlove, there were subtle changes to his musical touch, but not enough to garner any attention. However, in The Afterlove, his collaboration with Onerepublic frontman Ryan Tedder and best friend Ed Sheeran propelled him to create a synth-heavy, tropical beat based album that was unlike any of his previous albums. Singles such as Love Me Better or Bartender were so off the beaten track even by Blunt standards, even stalwart James Blunt fans would have to stop and take a listen to this album.

Critics call it ‘another inoffensive album’. Fans call it ‘different’.

I call it unique.

It has been a while since Blunt burst out in the pop music scene, filling our radios with his vibrato and well meaning songs. However, there has never been much progress in his musical path, especially with songs like Postcards or Bonfire Heart, both of them being songs in his fourth album, Moon Landing, did not land into the hearts of many outside of the UK. In The Afterlove, he decided to go for the electronic route, gagging himself with autotune and tropical grooves that can only be traced back to the Daft Punk Effect, where Random Access Memories lurks and still manages to influence the music industry and how their music sounds like, even after close to four years before The Afterlove was released.

We may have been wrong about Blunt before, but make no mistake about it; James Blunt is here to stay, and we will be so glad to have him for a long, long time.