Defend the Indefensible: James Blunt

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So is anyone actually going to go with the thread title and defend him?

All the singaporean girls in my office love him. They sit around a pc together and listen to the song and get emotional. I don't mention this because it has any significance vis a vis quality, but it's interesting.

Jacob (Jacob), Monday, 20 March 2006 00:57 (eighteen years ago) link

gekkopppel OTM

jed_ (jed), Monday, 20 March 2006 01:12 (eighteen years ago) link

The only thing I can myster in defense of this awful, awful song is that the chord change on the line "And I don't know what to do" is midldy unpredictable in relation to the interchangeable circle-of-fifths shit that comprises the rest of that fucking thing.

joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 20 March 2006 04:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Wikipedia: In a TV4 Nyhetsmorgon interview, he mentioned that he had been shot at more times than 50 Cent.

Shot at. Not shot -- shot at.

Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Monday, 20 March 2006 12:27 (eighteen years ago) link

heh heh...England Dan and John Ford Coley...

hank s (hank s), Monday, 20 March 2006 22:17 (eighteen years ago) link

This past weekend I was in Boston for my annual fantasy baseball draft, a day-long affair with 14 other guys getting shitfaced and comparing the relative merits of Brian McCann vs Kenji Jojhima. We realized during that afternoon that James is in fact doing a very bad Katharine Hepburn impersonation for most of that song. It's a remarkably short line from "she was WITH anutha MAHN" to "the calla lilies are in bloom" . . . but it's even more fun to deliver the lyric in full Ethel Merman bombast. In fact, that's just what I'll do next time I do karaoke.

Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 01:55 (eighteen years ago) link

YES! That's what I was trying to put a finger on!

mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 12:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Some ice dancing couple used this song for their exhibition skate at the World Figure Skating championships yesterday.

o. nate (onate), Monday, 27 March 2006 18:07 (eighteen years ago) link

James is in fact doing a very bad Katharine Hepburn impersonation
Find me a girl who can sing like Cary Grant and I'll bankroll "The Philadelphia Story: The Musical".

O-Keigh (O-Keigh), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:57 (eighteen years ago) link

one month passes...
Blunt has got a message for us folks !

James Blunt delivered a blunt message to his “bastard” detractors yesterday – telling them at least his music is “getting me laid”.
http://www.gigwise.com/news.asp?contentid=17616

He said, “To all those bastards who don’t like my music who don’t like my music – you’re all adults, you can switch your radio off.

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !

DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 26 May 2006 12:16 (seventeen years ago) link

apparently one of the things he learned during his time in the army was how to pilot a ROFLcopter

bernard snow (sixteen sergeants), Friday, 26 May 2006 12:39 (seventeen years ago) link

“getting me laid”

i guess that was his plan.

a.b. (alanbanana), Friday, 26 May 2006 12:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Singing in a fake weird mid atlantic accent repeating the words "your Beautiful" like a parrot = "getting me laid" according to Blunt

DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 26 May 2006 12:47 (seventeen years ago) link

probably v true tho

Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 26 May 2006 12:50 (seventeen years ago) link

He said, “To all those bastards who don’t like my music who don’t like my music – you’re all adults, you can switch your radio off.

Did he say "who don't like my music" twice because he came in too early for his backing track?

mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 26 May 2006 12:57 (seventeen years ago) link

the man has a point, and he's laughing all the way to the bank if he's for real.

the pussy bank, that is.

Emily B (Emily B), Friday, 26 May 2006 13:31 (seventeen years ago) link

The NRO makes a discovery.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:59 (seventeen years ago) link

On patrol around Pristina, he kept his guitar bolted to the outside of his tank.

joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:33 (seventeen years ago) link

"This guitar kills separatists."

Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link

On patrol around Pristina, he kept his guitar bolted to the outside of his tank.

you can saee them now can't you - staring moodily into their coffee in the mountain fastnesses of Kosovo, haunted, not by what they did during the war, but by what they didn't do........ as 'you're beautiful' comes on the radio.......again

sonofstan (sonofstan), Monday, 5 June 2006 19:51 (seventeen years ago) link

"This tank contains Blunt"

mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 08:02 (seventeen years ago) link

The missing link between David Gray and Ronan Keating.

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 09:31 (seventeen years ago) link

is Blunt the most laughable AOR star since david hasselhoff ?

DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 10:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Ned beat me to it. DAMN.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 11:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Is that a good thing or a bad thing for you Geir? (he's pretty melodic no?)

gekoppel (Gekoppel), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 15:52 (seventeen years ago) link

one year passes...

Good thing President Bush doesn't negotiate with terrorists who make threats like this. A black helicopter is hopefully on its way to Warner Music Group right now.

Cunga, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 04:51 (sixteen years ago) link

so awful.

W4LTER, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 04:58 (sixteen years ago) link

I quite liked his version of Young Folks.

Alba, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 08:29 (sixteen years ago) link

I don't hate the recent single. Quite like it, even.

Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 08:41 (sixteen years ago) link

Oh, I do hate that because it's tarnished my year of birth forever.

Alba, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 09:11 (sixteen years ago) link

i haven't heard his new stuff. wake me up when it disappears.

That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 11:27 (sixteen years ago) link

Looking forward to that 18-month coma then?

Matt DC, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 11:31 (sixteen years ago) link

i'm slightly scared that i don't find 1973 utterly execrable. i'm either over the hill or he's actually got better.

CharlieNo4, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 11:37 (sixteen years ago) link

i kind of feel that gwen, justin, and xtina all undershot last year and maybe mankind will luck out and blunt will also fade sooner than anticipated.

That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 11:37 (sixteen years ago) link

rockismgonemad.com

Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 11:44 (sixteen years ago) link

There are a huge number of acts that annoy me more, and I don't understand the outright hatred.

That being said, I'm pretty indifferent towards the entire guy, and there are numerous musically similar acts that would have deserved his success way more.

Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 12:36 (sixteen years ago) link

Man, if even Geir isn't going to defend the guy....

Pashmina, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 12:40 (sixteen years ago) link

...then it means ILM has a consensus.

That's fucking dead set frightening.

King Boy Pato, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 12:49 (sixteen years ago) link

The weird thing about that NYT article is that they talk to Linda Perry about how he had a huge song that everyone hated without even bringing up that she wrote fucking "What's Up."

Charlie's right that "1973" is unsettlingly OK.

Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:06 (sixteen years ago) link

Someone who knows about these things told me recently that he doesn't even write his own material, which surprised me. But then, given that Blunt probably wasn't even born in 1973, that kind of makes sense.

"You're Beautiful" is definitely this decade's "What's Up" though, ie the worst song of their respective decade.

harveyw, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:27 (sixteen years ago) link

Are there people who now champion 70s soft-rock who wanna argue that this kinda stuff in its 70s incarnation was good but Blunt is bad? Just curious

J0hn D., Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:39 (sixteen years ago) link

Are you arguing that there were no 70s soft-rock acts that were substantially better than James Blunt?

Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:47 (sixteen years ago) link

Did the question mark at the end of my sentence fail in its mission?

J0hn D., Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:49 (sixteen years ago) link

I dunno, it just seemed like an odd rhetorical stance to make unless that was your implication. Aren't there obviously tons of people who would make the argument your asking for? Were you trying to get a show of hands?

Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:51 (sixteen years ago) link

James Blunt is not Mondeo Pop. No way.

acrobat, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:51 (sixteen years ago) link

Alex get a cup of coffee or a something, it's a question

J0hn D., Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:52 (sixteen years ago) link

if I'd known I was writing for professorial scrutiny instead of asking a question on a fuckin message board though maybe I'd've been extra careful about the "rhetorical stance" I'm taking by wondering something out loud

J0hn D., Wednesday, 19 September 2007 13:55 (sixteen years ago) link

I think the issue is clearly that I've already had a cup of coffee.

Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 14:47 (sixteen years ago) link

I remember some interview (Linda Perry?) where she says something about "ah, he'd pretty much finished it" about her contribution.

So, why was her contribution necessary? It's not like it's a wonderful song afterwards either.

Is he still 'not completely writing songs' now?

Mark G, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 15:59 (sixteen years ago) link


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