Atlantic
2007
All The Lost Souls
About This Album
For as big a hit as it was, "You're Beautiful" wasn't necessarily representative of what kind of a singer/songwriter James Blunt is. It wasn't necessarily inaccurate, but it was misleading, suggesting that all this tremulously tuneful singer/songwriter wants to do is be sensitive -- that he aimed himself squarely at the middle of the road, crafting gentle music for housewives. That's not quite the case, as his 2007 sophomore effort, All the Lost Souls, makes plain. Surely, Blunt is wholly mainstream, a slicker, spirited variation on David Gray's elegantly upscale folk-pop, but he's not crassly commercial, deciding to disregard the path toward stultifying adult contemporary -- a path that "You're Beautiful" certainly pointed toward -- but he's also choosing to not write happy, harmless pop like Daniel Powter, still dwelling on moody, introspective midtempos. In other words, he still adheres to the Gray template the second time around, but he opens things up slightly with some spacey textures reminiscent of Coldplay and a heavy dose of classic popcraft, learned equally from Elton John, David Bowie, and Paul McCartney. Oddly, the sum total of these influences turns Blunt into the heir to that forgotten strain of wimpy, wispy songwriter-driven British pop of the '70s embodied by such once-stars as Al Stewart, Leo Sayer, and Gilbert O'Sullivan.
Track List (try tracks 2,5 and 7)

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