James Blunt review – beige balladeer turns up the self-deprecating charm
Having a global smash as couple-friendly as You’re Beautiful would often cast a singer-songwriter as gooey but wearily earnest “serious artist”. But James Blunt tore up the script, using social media to reinvent himself as a troll-obliterating, self-deprecating wit. When a chap tweeted him fretting that he was “really enjoying James Blunt’s new album” (Once Upon a Mind), the 45-year-old former army captain shot back: “It’s the menopause.”
This is the persona Blunt brings to concerts, which may have been a fiendish career move but seems to come naturally. He jokes that people are “weird, but lovely” to attend his gig on Valentine’s night and reveals that Elton John advised him to always play the hits. “That’s me fucked. I’d have to play You’re Beautiful 22 times.” He dedicates a song to “couples” and with comic timing introduces Goodbye My Lover, a song about a crushing breakup, performed with the intensity he wrote it.
Related: James Blunt: how we made You're Beautiful
Blunt deadpans that he sings “miserable songs”, which can be true, but mostly they’re just very personal, whether eulogising a beautiful dawn (High) or ruminating on regrets (The Truth). Superstardom – and the need to fill arenas – presumably account for the more anodyne “whoah ohh”-packed Stay the Night and 5 Miles – uptempo grabs at the Coldplay/Ed Sheeran market.
Still, there is more to Captain Blunt than oft-ridiculed beige balladeer. Postcards, played on ukulele, has hints of Cockney Rebel. Singing duo Ward Thomas’s female vocals bring Fleetwood Mac vibes to Halfway, and 1973 is rendered as a vintage Elton stomp. It’s unclear whether Wisemen’s line about “a semi by the sea” is a deliberate double-entendre, although the singer recently revealed that You’re Beautiful is about “me, stalking someone else’s girlfriend while high”. Contrarily, Monsters, Blunt’s stunningly raw farewell to his ailing father, is surely the most powerful song he’s done. Blunt dashes off – something in his eye – but isn’t going to leave on a downbeat moment. “Last time I was here I called you Nottingham,” he says with a cringe. “You were very forgiving.”
•At Bonus Arena, Hull, on 16 February. Then touring.
