Review Summary: "Gotta ask yourself the question: Where. Are. You. Now?" 10 years later, somewhere off in obscurity... being a total James Blunt.
There’s just something hilarious about James Blount. When I hear him sing, I always imagine that he was some dude who was popular in high school for being the only guy that supplies weed and sold a lot of alcohol because he always got away with owning a legit looking fake ID. Or maybe the fact that the album was initially met with critical acclaim by many a music critic and to this day is cited as being met with critical acclaim according to
Wikipedia. Or, hell, to this day, his parents are the dude’s
managers. Or maybe, perhaps, he’s married to a
supermodel. Even more funny about this Blount guy, is that he changed his surname to Blunt (although, not legally) and his stage name “James Blunt” is now used as an English rhyming slang for c
unt... I kid you not.
I don’t know the album’s story by heart but the dude was almost fed with a silver spoon when someone super close to Elton John was listening to a demo of “Goodbye My Lover” when he was driving home and bla bla bla the rest is history type of crap bla bla bla.
Only thing I really know for certain about this James Blunt is he went to an academy for like arts or something of that aesthetic and then graduated with a mandatory obligation to serve in the army. That was, of course, against poor Blount’s wishes because he only wanted to follow a career in music.
So now we’re here at his debut
Back to Bedlam. Immaculately produced “ballads” from an emotional, washed up soldier. His vocals sound like the bastard child of Jeff Mangum and Elliott Smith with a brief mile high club with Bob Dylan and an ambiguous possibility of having an affair with Seth Putnam. Blount is by no means a bad singer, you just either like or abhor the vocals. His songwriting - probably due to the fact that everyone kissed his ass in the production/recording of the album - is way too formulaic throughout the album; it goes a little like this:
- Recycled the same chord progression/lead guitar lick on acoustic guitar in as many songs as possible (albeit in different tunings per song, of course)
- Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Jam Session/Bridge-Chorus (maybe even an outro verse if he’s emotional enough)
- 2nd verse contains identical lyrics to the first verse albeit with minimal lyric changes because he doesn’t want the repetitiveness to sound like he’s ripping off The Eurythmics’ song “Sweet Dreams”
In describing the song structure that
every song is written to, there’s almost no point in describing all 10 songs in any sort of detail… Ah, what the hell. Well, I mean, “High” and “Tears and Rain” have the
exact same acoustic guitar chord progression; “You’re Beautiful”, “Cry”, and (I’m very damn sure at a faster pace) “So Long Jimmy” have the
exact same lead guitar lick. “High”, “Tears and Rain”, “Out of My Mind”, “So Long Jimmy”, “Billy”,
and “Cry” are the type of songs where the first two verses have near identical lyrics and structure. If he was trying to make a concept album, he should’ve at least tried to be more original than have it be all about heartbreak.
But how does this lack of mature songwriting justify any sort of originality or enjoyment that this record will try to convey? He proves on his second album
All the Lost Souls that he can make incredible ballads if he wanted to and remains his magnum opus, but BTB? At least half the time on the record he proved that he was capable of writing a spectacular “pop ballad” record for the first and only time of his career.
“High” and “Wisemen” have, surprisingly, great songwriting with the former having some damn killer falsettos in the chorus. “Goodbye my Lover” proves he can write an emotional, atmospheric song if he wanted to, but the cheese factor is off the charts; “No Bravery” is the better piano ballad and has a live performance running the the background to create an even more haunting listen. "Out of My Mind" is decent but gets old after just hearing him do his best Nickelback impression, guitars distorted to oblivion, cockiness and all. Oh yeah, and “You’re Beautiful” is a definite contestant for the worst pop ballad ever written. All the other tracks, really, are deprived of any sort of notability despite being very much listenable. The only other thing notable in the rest of the songs are the performance of his backup band who do a great job playing their instruments,
especially the drummer.
Really just take out the few great songs on the record and it’d be one hell of an EP. But whoever’s idea to make a full length album is an idiot.
The Only Recommendable Tracks:
High
Wisemen
Tears and Rain
No Bravery
Album Rating: 2.5
