The surprise of the year is Blunt, James Blunt. The previously completely unknown Ex-British Army officer resulted this summer in his home for weeks, the single, album and download charts simultaneously at. How did he do it without being previously declared by hype for "Star" or to make the media attention with escapades and large sayings? All the usual explanation for such phenomena meet him in a striking manner not to. For example: Do not ever bring the artists here Heard hearing. Blunt (vocals, guitar, keyboards, and on his incurred in Los Angeles debut accompanied by a professional team for the label of ex-4Non Blondes singer Linda Perry) has a long tradition of sensitive British songwriter. Similarities with Cat Stevens, Nick Drake (which it also resembles externally), but also with his contemporaries Damian Rice and David Gray and (yes, but, really well) with Tracy Chapman are more or less clearly visible in each of the ten songs , And this property is the chart-success usually not very conducive: Blunts music needs room to unfold. The superficial listener will perceive only a series of appealing, but unexciting songs, mostly worn in muted pace and by the acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar, and he is probably grateful breathe when in "So Long Jimmy" is sometimes funky discreetly. Only through repeated, intense listening opens up the quality of these songs. And suddenly it shimmers a whole spectrum of moods forth. Correct feelgood numbers for oneself to be put in are "high" (not with intoxicants, but set to music euphoria through and through) the dreamy "You're Beautiful" and "Cry", thematically a remake of James Taylor's classic "You've Got A Friend" and topped by Blunt himself with a magnificent organ. In contrast, lies dormant under the seemingly calm surface of "Out Of My Mind "a laboriously restrained aggression, the gehechelte staccato" Da-Dadada "-Chor has at the end of something impalpable threatening about it. Who in turn in" "Goodbye My Lover not fight back the tears must, which is never the dream of a large Love burst abruptly. And the seemingly unemotional and just enormously effective manner in which he describes the end in "No Bravery" the horrors of war in simple images can be measured with Elvis Costello's legendary anti-Falklands song "Shipbuilding". Who has not noticed until now, which it is hereby also said explicitly: The man can write not only challenging, but actually intelligent lyrics! A single line like "All pleasure's the same, it just keeps me from trouble" (from "Tears And Rain") is enough food for thought for an entire rainy Sunday. And here precisely is probably the reason for the overnight success of James Blunt: We are dealing with a perfectly suitable for everyday life poetry, shows the feelings and transported - Beautiful, sad, tragic - in the context of our seemingly banal everyday life, for the metro station stands as an emblem lodging the backdrop for the story in "You're Beautiful" and in which the poet of the inner cover was photographed. This need will be met, as the vitamin needs of the body. Your doctor or pharmacist recommends Blunt. James Blunt.
