James Blunt

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For the American Civil War general, see James G. Blunt.

James Blunt
James Blunt performing in Seattle, Washington in April 2006.
Background information
Born	February 22, 1974 (age 32)
Origin	Tidworth, Wiltshire, England
Genre(s)	Pop rock Alternative Folk rock
Years active	2004–present
Label(s)	Warner/Atlantic/Custard
Website	JamesBlunt.com

James Blunt (born James Blount 22 February 1974) is an English singer/songwriter whose debut album, Back to Bedlam, and single releases — especially the number one hit "You're Beautiful" — brought him to fame in 2005. His style is a mix of pop, rock, folk and adult contemporary. Along with vocals, Blunt plays a wide variety of instruments including the piano, guitar, organ, marimba, and mellotron.

He is signed to Linda Perry's American label Custard, and became the first British artist to top the American singles chart in nearly a decade when his song "You're Beautiful" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2006. The last British artist to do so had been Elton John in 1997 with the song Candle in the Wind.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Singing career 3 Reactions to success 3.1 Parodies and References 4 Discography 4.1 Albums 4.2 Hit singles 5 Awards 6 References 7 External links 7.1 Misc news items

[edit] Early life

Blunt was born in Tidworth, Wiltshire, England in 1974 and educated at Elstree School, Woolhampton, then Harrow School. From there he gained an army sponsored place at Bristol University, before finally completing his education at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Blunt's father was in the British Army Air Corps, and his family has a long history of military service. The Blount family is also known to have owned and restored Cley windmill.^[1]

Blunt was then a commissioned officer in the Life Guards regiment, a unit of the Household Cavalry of the British Army. He rose to the rank of Captain and served as an armoured reconnaissance officer in the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, amongst the 30,000 troops advancing into Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. ^[2] It was while on duty in Kosovo that he wrote his song "No Bravery". He also stood guard at the coffin of the Queen Mother during the days of her lying in State and was part of the funeral procession on April 9, 2002.^[3][4]

[edit] Singing career

Within a year of leaving the army, Blunt teamed up with former 4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry, who had written and produced songs for P!nk, Courtney Love and Christina Aguilera. Perry signed him to her new US-based Custard Records label, and Blunt recorded his album in Los Angeles with producer Tom Rothrock at Rothrock's home studio, Embassy studios^[5] while lodging with actress Carrie Fisher.^[6]

James Blunt's debut single, by "soft release" in the UK was "High" (co-written with Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue). This song peaked below the Top 100 of the UK Singles Chart. However, the song was chosen to appear in a Vodafone commercial in Italy, and as a result was a Top 10 hit in that country. Some people have suggested that the title of his song "High" is in reference to drugs. His second single, "Wisemen", improved upon that position with a #44 peak, and sent the album into the UK's Top 20 chart. A support slot on Elton John's 2004 tour followed.

Blunt's third single "You're Beautiful" was his breakout hit. The song debuted at #12 in the UK, and demonstrated a rare trend of upward mobility on the UK charts, rising all the way to the #1 position six weeks after its debut. The song also received massive airplay in the UK, which helped propel Back To Bedlam to #1 on the albums chart, unseating the record-breaking album X&Y by Coldplay from the pole position. After the success of "You're Beautiful" in the UK, the song crossed over to mainland Europe, becoming one of the biggest hits of summer 2005 across the continent.

In the USA, "You're Beautiful" made its debut in the summer of 2005 on WPLJ, a prominent radio station in New York City, despite not having been released to radio yet. Once the song was released to radio stations in the Autumn of 2005, the song climbed into the Top 10 at three radio formats: Adult Contemporary, Adult Top 40, and Adult Alternative, eventually climbing to number 1 on the Hot 100.

The videos for all of Blunt's singles to date feature symbolism and dark imagery. In the first video for "High", he is buried in a desert. In the first video for "Wisemen", he is kidnapped and taken hostage. In the video for "You're Beautiful", he alludes to suicide by jumping off a cliff into the sea. The re-release video for "High" then features Blunt running in a forest. The re-release video for "Wisemen" has Blunt burning identification papers, and then walking through a forest while he is on fire. And in "Goodbye My Lover" he is playing the piano and singing while clips of a man and woman kissing and cuddling are flashed up every few seconds. (Mischa Barton starred in the "Goodbye My Lover" video.)

On 3 December 2005, he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. His music has been featured on television programmes throughout the world. He made his acting debut on the (US) ABC Family Channel programme Wildfire, first aired on January 30, 2006. He also appeared in episode 103 of the CBS comedy Love Monkey (original air date February 7, 2006) . He was interviewed and performed "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover" on the Oprah Winfrey Show on March 8, 2006 (taped on February 21, 2006).

In 2005, he performed 90 live shows, mainly across the UK and Europe, ending the year supporting Jason Mraz in a North American tour. The "Back to Bedlam World Tour" started off in Europe in early January 2006, moving through the UK in February, and then progressing to his first full headlining tour in North America starting in March. In April, Blunt performed several dates in Australia, New Zealand and Japan before returning to North America for May, and then starting another UK/European tour in June and July. October and November saw the return of Blunt to North America. ^[7], ^[8] In addition to the songs from the "Back to Bedlam" album, Blunt has included several cover songs, including "Where Is My Mind?" and "Breakfast in America." Blunt has also performed several unrecorded original works in live performances.

[edit] Reactions to success

Blunt initially had little investment from both the independent record label he was signed to, Custard Records, or from his distributors Atlantic Records. Although his songs often refer to drugs, and trading standards authorities forced him to add an explicit lyrics warning to the packaging of his debut album, critics of Blunt have cited 'inoffensive' songs and vast marketing investment as reason to see him more in the mould of a commercial act rather than a genuine singer-songwriter. Blunt's dramatic rise to commercial success has garnered hostility from other artists as well. His short-notice billing at a Irish summer festival, ousting the now lesser known Declan O'Rourke, led the latter to refer to him as "James cucking funt" live on-air on an Irish radio station. In 2006, the name James Blunt was entered into the Dictionary of Cockney rhyming slang (a 'right James Blunt') referring to a slang word for the female genitalia. Blunt is said to have responded, "John F. Kennedy got an airport named after him - I got my favorite part of the female anatomy". ^[9]

On May 29, 2006, the British press reported that a local radio station Essex FM had announced that it had banned all songs by Blunt from being played, after listeners of the station repeatedly called and said they were "fed up with them". The station stopped playing the hit single "You're Beautiful" after having it on constant rotation for 14 months. They played the Blunt's single "Wisemen" 26 times the next week.^[10]

A survey conducted this year reported that Blunt was the fourth most annoying thing in the UK, beaten only by cold callers, queue-jumpers and caravans.^[11]

According to The Sun, You're Beautiful has eclipsed Robbie Williams' Angels as the wedding favourite in the United Kingdom. In the same article, Goodbye My Lover was revealed to be a funeral favourite as well, with two high profile funerals in Canada using the song in memorials for Laval police officer Valerie Gignac and Toronto teenager Jane Creba.^[12][13]

[edit] Parodies and References

• A parody of You're Beautiful called "You're Gullible" was recorded by DogHorse in 2005. A video / game of "You're Gullible" was later silenced by legal threats from the song publishers. Despite this Blunt has gone on record on Australian TV in June 2006 stating that he threw tomatoes at himself in the eclectech game ^[14]
• Jon Culshaw parodied Blunt on Dead Ringers in a spoof called "It's Bloody Cold". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thtmaZnxk_0
• Nicole Parker (wearing a prosthetic male chest in order to impersonate the shirtless Blunt) performed a spoof called "I'm Beautiful" for MADtv.
• Mitch Benn performed a song called "I May Just Have to Murder James Blunt" in his show "Mitch Benn's Crimes Against Music" on June 27th. An extended version of this song is included on his MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/mitchbenn).
• "Weird Al" Yankovic composed and recorded a parody of "You're Beautiful" entitled "You're Pitiful," intended for release on his twelfth album. Yankovic had done so with permission from Blunt himself. However Blunt's label, Atlantic Records, forbid Yankovic from releasing his parody. Yankovic removed the song from his album to avoid conflict with the record label, and in June of 2006 posted it as a free download.^[15][16]
• London based rap-group Comb My Hair and Eat It Up have a song called "James Blunted", about smoking marijuana. This is a reference to the term Blunt (cigar), a cigar filled with the drug.
• The Internet Sketch Comedy show Moron Life did a parody of the song entitled "My Testicles."
• "Morning Sidekick"", a website which provides comedy material to subscribing hosts of morning radio shows, introduced a parody song called "My Cubicle". The parody spawned a fan video.
• Blunt has stated that his favorite parody is a sketch by Australian comedian, Tom Gleeson, who plays the boyfriend of the girl depicted in the song "You're Beautiful" "Tom Gleeson"

[edit] Discography

For a complete discography see James Blunt discography.

[edit] Albums

• 2004: Back to Bedlam (11x Platinum worldwide)
• 2006: Chasing Time: The Bedlam Sessions (DVD/CD)

[edit] Hit singles

The following singles reached the top twenty in the United Kingdom and/or Australia. Their peak positions are shown, along with the peak positions for Ireland, Mexico and the United States. For a full singles discography, see James Blunt discography.