You begged for it... James Blunt
The main thing preventing this is that I didn't want to have to purchase the album in order to review it. Instead I will write the review based on a video from iFilm.
If you haven't seen the video yet, you should really watch. Especially if you've been feeling down about yourself and want to be serenaded by a dreamy British guy:
James Blunt-- "Beautiful"
The tag-line for the above is just too wonderfully absurd. It serves as an excellent starting point:
"U.K. singer-songwriter Blunt emotes up a storm on this pretty ballad about seeing a beautiful woman. He knows you can fall in love, jump into love or leap over the edge."
First off, how exactly does one transcend singing and songwriting to acquire that much sought-after hyphen? It seems to me that the requirements for being a singer-songwriter are three: writing songs, singing them, and being a pansy. Have you ever heard anyone referred to as a singer-s0ngwriter who wasn't a pansy? I'm serious, I mean you would never call Dylan that, I don't think you would even call Leonard Cohen that... Neil Diamond, sure... James Taylor, obviously. And now, James Blunt.
"...emotes up a storm..": I never want to see anyone emote up a storm. Anyone possessing real emotions would instantly hunt down whoever wrote that line and punch them in the face. Can you imagine anyone applying that tag-line to someone who wasn't dreamy teenage girl lunchmeat? "Otis Redding emotes up a storm..." No. Just no.
My favorite part of the above blurb is that the subject of this "emotional storm" is exhausted
within about four words, one of which is an article: "seeing a beautiful girl." That's really it actually. Nothing else happens!
The emotional low point occurs early on: "She was with another man." You need to watch the video for full effect here as Blunt very dejectedly looks down and glances off to the side. I can't watch it without laughing. I can just imagine the director coaching him through this, "Okay, up to now everything's been great: your life is brilliant, your love is pure, you see this girl and... she's with another man! We need to see your dejection there, James. We need to see the deep despair in your soul."
Another word or two about the video. So you've seen this beautiful woman on the subway. Naturally, there is only one possible reaction: you must go to the beach in the rain and remove all of your clothing. My favorite part of the video is when he removes his shoes and the contents of his pockets and places it in a neat little row on the ground, with each article spaced three centimeters apart and arranged in descending order by size. It is completely baffling... it looks like a scene from the television show "Monk."
The song itself... isn't that bad. The lyrics are vacuous and awful (The line "When she thought up that I should be with you" squeezed into about 2 bars at the end reflects that this song obviously did not go through any kind of revision process) ...but the melody is pretty and memorable.
Although the second verse when he starts unexpectedly singing ridiculously high notes is inexplicable. It is as though someone is randomly shocking his testicles with bolts of electricity. I have never understood this desire too sing unnaturally high for no good reason. It's one of the things that ruins The Band for me... I just want to grab Robbie Robertson and/or Rich Danko and shake them and yell "WHY ARE YOU SINGING SO HIGH!!!"
Okay, I think that's enough. Best of luck to you, Blunt.
posted by Sweet John at 7:46 PM
2 Comments:
What? No Essential Rating?
I am emoting up a storm right now.
Although I am somewhat surprised you didn't comment on his very oddly-affected british accent. It is almost an attempt to do the French thing where you mush wordings together. I also think he must have the worlds strongest nasal passage if he is able to sustain singing through his nose like that for so long.
Ah, but I can't even stand to hear the first 4 notes of this song before wanting to hit something to affirm there is still testosterone in the world. This song is like a damn dog whistle for teenage girls.
"Dog whistle for teenage girls"... you've obviously touched on some primordial element of poor humanity. This needs to be incorporated into Wikipedia somehow. Good show john.
Post a Comment
<< Home