james blunt

James "Jimmy" Blunt (born James Hillier 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 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.

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 Bosnia and Kosovo. It was there that he wrote his song "No Bravery". He was also on duty for the funeral of the Queen Mother on April 9, 2002^[1][2]. In a TV4 Nyhetsmorgon interview, and in an ExtraTV interview, he mentioned that he had been shot at more times than 50 Cent.

Singing career

James Blunt's debut single 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. Some people have suggested that the title of his song "High" is in reference to drugs; Blunt, however, claims this to be untrue. His second single, "Wisemen", improved upon that position with a #44 peak.

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 and also throughout all of the US, 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 into an ocean as the final lyrics are sung. The re-release video for "High" then features Blunt running from some unseen predator 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.)

Blunt has made numerous television and radio appearances throughout the UK, Europe, North America and Australia. 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). He stated on Oprah that "You're Beautiful" is based on a true story when he saw his ex-girlfriend at a subway station with another man. Blunt also sings a cover of Australian/New Zealand band Crowded House's hit Fall At Your Feet, which was played at several points during a recent episode of US teen drama The OC.

In April 2006, the song No Bravery was released in France, it was number 15 in the charts. He has a wide fan base in Asia, due to his boyish good looks and charm. He has also influenced many bands such as MOP.

Reactions to success

Blunt's dramatic rise to commercial success has garnered hostility. His short-notice billing at a major 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. The name James Blunt has now become Cockney rhyming slang (a 'right James').[2]

The Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake column has claimed that Blunt is in fact three years older than his publicity claims. Critics of Blunt have cited this, along with vast marketing investment and 'inoffensive' songs, in seeing him as more in the mould of a commercial act rather than a genuine singer-songwriter, despite Blunt initially having little to no investment from both the independent record label he was signed to or from distributors Atlantic Records.

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 had actually just stopped playing the hit single "You're Beautiful" after having it on constant rotation for 14 months. They played the single "Wisemen" 26 times the next week. [3]

A survey conducted in 2006 reported that Blunt was the fourth most annoying thing in the UK, beaten only by cold callers, queue-jumpers and caravans.[4]

In early October 2006, a british survey revealed that Blunt's song "Goodbye My Lover" "has become the most requested song to be played at funerals and services of remembrance in the UK." (BBC)

Parodies and References

• Jon Culshaw parodied Blunt on Dead Ringers in a spoof called "It's Bloody Cold. [5]
• Nicole Parker (wearing a prosthetic male chest in order to impersonate the shirtless Blunt) performed a spoof called "I'm Beautiful" for MADtv. [6]
• 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. The song is currently available as a free download at Benn's MySpace page.
• "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, chose to 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 on his own website. [7]
• Comedian Craig Carmean did a parody called Ramen Noodles.
• An artist naming himself Not James Blunt composed and recorded a parody of "You're Beautiful" entitled "My Cubicle". A version of which can be viewed on the website youtube.com. [8]
• A group called DogHorse performed 'You're Gullible' [9]
• London based rap-group Comb My Hair and Eat It Up have a song called James Blunted, about smoking marijuana. 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."
• A British acoustic comedy duo entitled Denacious Tea, parody 'goodbye my lover', with their song 'goodbye to baggie'
• American musician Trey Boles wrote a parody called "My Public School" The lyrics can be found as a blog on his myspace account 'iloveasiangirls'.
• Comedian Kevin Sage parodied the song "You're Beautiful", titled simply "Beautiful" and a video can be seen on MySpace.

Awards

2005

• 2005 – MTV Europe Music Awards- Best New Act
• 2005 – Q Awards - Best New Act
• 2005 – Digital Music Awards - Best Pop Act

2006

• 2006 – NRJ Music Awards (France) - Best International Newcomer
• 2006 – Brit Awards - Best pop act and Best Male
• 2006 – ECHO Awards (Germany) - Best International Newcomer
• 2006 – NME Awards - Worst Album
• 2006 – MTV Australia Video Music Awards - Song of the Year for "You're Beautiful"
• 2006 – Ivor Novello Awards - Most Performed Work and International Hit of the Year
• 2006 – MTV Video Music Awards - Best Male Video
• 2006 – MTV Video Music Awards - Best Cinematography

Discography

For a complete discography see James Blunt discography.

Albums

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

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.