All The Lost Souls James Blunt

• 1 1973 04:40
• 2 One Of The Brightest Stars 03:11
• 3 I'll Take Everything 03:04
• 4 Same Mistake 04:58
• 5 Carry You Home 03:57
• 6 Give Me Some Love 03:37
• 7 I Really Want You 03:40
• 8 Shine On 04:26
• 9 Annie 03:29
• 10 I Can't Hear The Music 03:45
• 11 Love, Love, Love 03:48
• 12 Cuz I Love You 05:42
• 13 Young Folks 03:51
• 14 Breakfast In America 04:38
• 15 Primavera in anticipo [it is my song] [duet with James Blunt] 03:30
• Total Runtime 01:00:16

Info for All The Lost Souls

James Blunt captivated the world with his 2005 debut album Back to Bedlam. Since that time the record has gone on to sell over 10 million copies worldwide making James the number one artist of the past two years. On All The Lost Souls, the eagerly-anticipated follow-up to his smash debut, James displays remarkable musical growth as a songwriter. This captivating collection of songs recalls the timeless sounds of legends like Elton John, Cat Stevens, and Neil Young.

„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 spacy 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. The ghost of Gilbert echoes throughout 'One of the Brightest Stars,' and while this allusion is quite likely inadvertent, it also doesn't seem to be a coincidence that the opening song (and first single) on All the Lost Souls is a song that celebrates '1973,' because much of this album feels like it could have been recorded and released during that mid-'70s heyday of sensitive pop. The main difference is not the clean, modern production with its slight digital flourishes -- things that push the rhythms forward on 'Give Me Some Love,' one of the livelier moments here -- but that Blunt isn't some quivering bedsit bard; he's the babe who enthusiastically shed his clothes in the 'You're Beautiful' video, somebody whose confidence infuses his brokenhearted laments and makes them feel not quite so melancholy. This makes All the Lost Souls soothing, not haunting, and it also removes many of the quirks that distinguished '70s albums by McCartney, O'Sullivan, Sayer, and Elton, so this won't quite seduce that kind of pop fan (although this may hold more interest for them than they might initially think), nor will it win over anybody who can't quite get past the garbled, strangled soul affections of his voice, which remains his greatest liability -- but it will seduce anybody already won over by his 2005 debut, Back to Bedlam, since it's a tighter, more assured record than that. But chances are, they were seduced by Blunt already.“ (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

Produced by Tom Rothrock, James Blunt

Please Note: We offer this album in its native sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, 24-bit. The provided 96 kHz version was up-sampled and offers no audible value!

James Blunt
In a glorious musical career spanning over two decades, James Blunt has achieved the kind of success that any artist vying for stardom would feasibly bite one or indeed both of his hands off to achieve. His debut album Back To Bedlam shifted over 17.5 million copies and saw him become the kind of decade-defining cultural phenomenon who attracts both fervent fans IRL – as countless sold-out arena tours attest – but also a huge online following after he became one of Britain’s best loved and funniest Tweeters. “Idk who needs to hear this, but you’re beautiful,” came an innocuous tweet from Nicki Minaj to her millions of followers last year. Without missing a beat, James shot back: “You’re a little late to the party.”

But if you think this former British Army Captain, pop supremo and pithy genius is a man now thoroughly happy with his lot and hellbent on soaking up the Balearic sun in his Ibiza mansion, you’d be best placed to think again. A new chapter of the James Blunt story now arrives in Airplane Mode, and the man who achieved the top-selling album of the noughties is ready to thoroughly back himself with it.

“Artists always say we’re excited about an album, but you’re often left trying to work out what level they’re reaching on the bullshit-o-meter,” Blunt explains.

“But this album. This one I really believe in. I really know in my heart of hearts that I can look you in the eye and say this is one of the best albums that James Blunt is ever going to make. My first album was massive and my second was maybe more established, but I think maybe this one tops that.”

A single listen of the record thoroughly backs up his convictions. These songs prove that it’s very much a welcome return and offer a frank dissection of the worries that swirl around the heads of nearly every decent human on Planet Earth. Being a multi-platinum musician, you will be surprised to hear, does not mean that these things go away.

“I need music to express myself and on social media, I’m a clown. In the pub, I’m a clown. But music is where I put all the thoughts that I struggle with, the thoughts that keep me up at night, and music is where I go and put them to bed,” he says.

The album title, for instance, reflects the inherent joy of being largely uncontactable on a plane as a framing device for what it’s like to shut your mind off from the outside world.

“When I’m writing at my best, I think I’m really touching on the things I struggle with,” he explains. “The mind is a lonely place, no matter how many loved ones and friends you have, and most of the time you’re just living with that one voice in your head. I wrote about the madness of that isolation on Back To Bedlam, and I think that Airplane Mode is actually the same title, but with a sense of peace.”

It may sound like sobering stuff, but it’s delivered with a lightness of touch that long-term fans have always loved, backed by the fully formed sound of Blunt’s band after he opted for a different approach and laid down the tracks with them in the studio together.

“I’ve worked with some incredible producers”, he says, “but they’ve often done the recording when I’m not in the room, which I then have less connection with, and it doesn’t quite sound like me. This time around I got my band into a studio in Banbury. I’d call the various producers I wanted to work with and say, “you’re coming in on Monday”, the next on Tuesday and so on. I’d tell them they were still the boss, but it’s going to be my band and it’s going to have my input. It meant I took control of my album, and I made it sound the way I hear it,” he says. “Somewhere back there, I felt I’d lost my way, but now I’ve found it again – in a studio in Banbury.”

It is an album of consistently brilliant work. The breezy ‘Tastes Like Summer’ comes alongside a music video which acts as a wonderfully deranged homage to A24 horror movies, while the epic balladry of ‘Circles’ is a track which sees James heading back to his roots.

Similarly, the stirring ‘In My Blood’ is a reflection on the kind of intrusive thoughts that plague ninety percent of the planet and allows this record to become one of James’ most universally relatable. For James, then, this record has been understandably quite the experience.

“There’s a heaviness to this record, and what I realised is that I’ve been trying to do these happy radio songs for so long and, and that’s not me. Misery sells and misery is what I do best!,” he reflects. “So, when I started writing this album, I warned my family that I was going to go into my darkest corners and write about them. What was interesting is that I wrote all of those songs, but at the same time, I found real celebration as well. I was originally going to call the album ‘Reason To Die’, but along the way, I found songs that actually express a great sense of excitement for life and an excitement about the people I share it with, and the joy and happiness that they bring me.”

“I was trying to write the album of my life,” he surmises. “And I did.”

This album contains no booklet.