Defend the Indefensible: James Blunt

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (195 of them)

View Previous Page...

("Horrendus" is Latin.)

― Dan (Oops) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 2 March 2006 19:54 (eighteen years ago) link

It just seems like the two quickest ways to demolish a piece of music are to associate it with either Starbucks or NPR.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 2 March 2006 19:56 (eighteen years ago) link

As our Amber said after seeing the video "He'll never be with anyone if he carries on like that!"

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 2 March 2006 19:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Ha, yeah, It's like America has collectively decided to buy Blunt's schtick in hopes that he'll spend the money on a decent hooker.

― darin (darin), Thursday, 2 March 2006 20:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Bob Dylan technically can't really sing but dammit he's knows his boundaries.

hahahaha SO not otm!

― swvl (vozick), Friday, 3 March 2006 01:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Can't stand the man, he belongs on a Dawsons Creek soundtrack alongside David Gray and Dido circa 2000-2001. Please go away Mr Blunt.

― Miranda Leigh (Miranda Leigh), Friday, 3 March 2006 03:09 (eighteen years ago) link

you go away!

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 3 March 2006 03:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Don't get your knickers into a twist, everyone has their own opinion and i think he's crap.

― Miranda Leigh (Miranda Leigh), Friday, 3 March 2006 03:19 (eighteen years ago) link

James Blunt has certainly known conflict -- he was a member of the British Army and served in Kosovo -- but now, as a singer and songwriter, he goes out of his way to avoid conflict, tension, or any other kind of distinguishing energy. His repetitive and well-mannered ballad "You're Beautiful" is creeping toward the top of the American charts as part of its obligatory life as a song before it becomes the perfume commercial it was born to be. Blunt's assets, if you can call them that, are a weak falsetto and a fearless decision to include the word "fucking" in this under-annotated composition about seeing a woman once and falling in love. It happens, sure, but Blunt's description of the fateful moment is as banal as the music: a Starbucks-friendly quilt of nylon-string classical guitar, mandolin, neutered drums, and a timid, depressive chord sequence. Those of us old enough to remember England Dan and John Ford Coley miss them terribly.
--Sasha Frere-Jones in this week's New Yorker

-- jaymc (jmcunnin...), March 2nd, 2006. (jaymc)

Yeah, Sash, but the same accusations of banality & timidness could easily be directed towards your pet artiste, Keren Ann. It don't get more Starbucks than that, dude!

(i have yet to hear Mr. Blunt, but his name is classic if only as an irritant to Mr. Blount)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 3 March 2006 09:08 (eighteen years ago) link

if by 'irritant' you mean 'endless source of amusement'

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 3 March 2006 09:14 (eighteen years ago) link

if you say so, jb.

― timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 3 March 2006 09:17 (eighteen years ago) link

I can't be the only person who clicked on this thinking it was about James Blount.

But his real name IS James Blount!

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 3 March 2006 12:10 (eighteen years ago) link

There's been other blunts before, there will be more in the future. Just ignore this one and it will go away.

― blunt (blunt), Friday, 3 March 2006 12:14 (eighteen years ago) link

Almost certainly no relation:

http://www.cbmr.org/pro/images/Sun-Ra.jpg

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 3 March 2006 12:19 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.megascreen.ca/art/snoop.gif

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 3 March 2006 12:22 (eighteen years ago) link

Unfortunately no images available of "Bertie Blunt, His Parrot's a Cunt"

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 3 March 2006 12:26 (eighteen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Ha ha WHAT THE FUCK:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=26931089&blogID=52032004&MyToken=14240ca5-75ed-4b29-9505-e65c503f2051

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 18 March 2006 11:25 (eighteen years ago) link

If you look at that guy's MySpace profile, he has Mickey Avalon as one of his friends. I guess when it comes to crap, he gets on at the ground floor.

― naus (Robert T), Saturday, 18 March 2006 14:50 (eighteen years ago) link

So, let me get this straight:

You thought he was shit, but you thought you could make a heap of money out of him and his limp, lifeless songs and ridiculous voice by selling it to people who don't like music, and, oh, boo-hoo, someone else poached him from you before you could squeeze the cash out of him. Cry me a river! That's a pretty self-interested version of "karma" you've got.

Sonned.

― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Saturday, 18 March 2006 15:02 (eighteen years ago) link

That "You're Beautiful" song is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS on the radio. Man this James Blunt guy sounds like Rod Stewart.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Saturday, 18 March 2006 18:18 (eighteen years ago) link

So, um, he can form his vowels correctly when he sings.

I still think he's doing something wrong with his vowels.

― O-Keigh (O-Keigh), Saturday, 18 March 2006 21:09 (eighteen years ago) link

In following links back I came across this story. I should think it's anonymous because anyone willing to put their name to this would need the gentle caresses of an iron boot:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4701924.stm

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 March 2006 21:37 (eighteen years ago) link

I took a listen to this guy recently. I really expected better considering all the critical accolades on his ads. Man, this is white shite. Not worth Tim Buckley's fingernail.

― The Sound of Walls (Bimble...), Sunday, 19 March 2006 13:48 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought JB was indefensible, then I heard Hard Fi. Then I saw the lead singer from Hard Fi. Case closed...

― gekkopppel, Sunday, 19 March 2006 19:57 (eighteen years ago) link

I had a customer return the CD because of the one swear word adn no warning sitcker....jesus!

what i want to know is how many people has he killed ? he said in an interview with a Sydney paper that when he was doing "recon" his seargent told them they were'nt doing there job right if they returned with all there bullets

― grapple (grapple), Monday, 20 March 2006 00:17 (eighteen years ago) link

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

Skipping 95 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.