The first time I heard James Blunt, I heard him on the faceless medium that is radio, and I didn’t know his name was James. I swear to God, I thought he was a woman. And I thought he was one of those weepy, pathetic women at that. When I saw the video for “You’re Beautiful,” my jaw hit the floor. “You gotta be f***ing kidding me!” He wasn’t a weepy and pathetic woman at all… He was a weepy and pathetic MAN! The correct word for the experience is “cognitive dissonance.”Needless to say, I don’t really respect James Blunt. Not allowing Weird Al to parody one of his songs (even though he did it anyway) really soured me on him. In my opinion, if Weird Al chooses you to aim his darts at, you should consider it an honor. At the very least, it means your record garnered the attention of a very musically savvy person. I sorta grew to like “You’re Beautiful,” if I imagine Ben Gibbard singing it instead. The idea of appreciating beauty just for the sake of it, without thinking what that beauty means as it applies to you, is very appealing to me. But as far as I’m concerned, James Blunt’s reason for existing ends there. Everything after that is unnecessary, and is in fact detrimental.
“Everything after” consists of his brand spankin’ new album called All the Lost Souls. The cover image of a photomosaic of James’s face seemed like an egotistical move, till I read that James actually requested that a photo of him NOT be used for the cover, and his art people played a little practical joke on him. “1973” is the first track and first single from All the Lost Souls, and it sounds like the rebirth of disco. As such, it’s one of those incredibly ugly babies, the ones their parents think is adorable. I can just see James Blunt getting his disco freak on to this song, complete with polyester pants and multi-colored lasers. Is this an image that makes anyone else want to vomit?
“One of the Brightest Stars” has a bit of a Paul McCartney chord progression going on, but I never really liked Paul all that much; I’m a John man myself. “I’ll Take Everything” is the closest James comes to his voice actually working in a song. The soft piano mixed with the insistent beat is kinda nice, and I appreciate the Holy Spirit reference in the lyrics. “Same Mistake” starts off with the “weepy and pathetic” thing in full force, but after a minute or so turns into a decent melody.
“Give Me Some Love” and “Annie” qualify for the Stuff I Wish the World Hadn’t Been Exposed To list. “Give Me Some Love” is a lame attempt at intensity, fraught with clumsy drug references. In “Annie,” he’s as crass as to ask “will you go down on me?” It’s an attempt at irony, but he doesn’t even try to sell it as such, so it just comes across as sleazy. “I Really Want You” is fairly catchy, but has an achingly stupid title and lyrical hook. “No matter what I say or do / the message isn’t getting though.” Oh, I think it is, James, and it’s time for it to stop.
A problem that the entire album has is that it’s boring. At the heart of it, it’s a lot of catchy hooks bloated into full songs until they’re hardly recognizable as what they were. There wasn’t much to work with at the beginning, so James just repeated himself and repeated himself, revealing his lack of originality. He’s completely a one-trick pony. Mind you, he’s not like Anberlin or Garbage, exploring a genre and mining it for all it’s worth. Rather than mining pop, as James Blunt has the opportunity to do here, he swings his mattock two or three times and says, “that’s good enough.” Well, it’s not good enough for me, and I hope the album sales say it’s not good enough for a lot of other people. I didn’t really expect ol’ Jimmy to deliver the goods, though. I’m surprised that castrated choir boy voice of his has carried him this far. Can we get to some good music, please?
I’ll Take Everything
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