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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Emily Mackay

James Blunt: The Afterlove review – likable isn’t listenable

James Blunt: he just keeps spreading that love.
James Blunt: he just keeps spreading that love.

“I’ve been called a dick/ I’ve been called so many things,” sings go-to musical punchline James Blunt in the opening lines of his fifth album, on which he twice makes reference to his 2004 millstone megahit You’re Beautiful. He’s made a lot of capital recently out of this self-aware sense of humour, mainly via self-deprecating Twitter quips. But likable isn’t listenable , and it’s hard to stomach the everyman shtick from an Old Harrovian multimillionaire with a ski lift named after him in the Swiss Alps, especially as he croons “some people keeping all the cash” on the perkily trite, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-on strummer Someone Singing Along. That aside, a chart-friendly tropical dance-pop production boosts Ibiza resident Blunt’s querulous, tremulous balladry with a fresh Chris De Burgh-hits-Cafe Del Mar energy on Paradise, Bartender and California, but it’s bland business as usual on soppy numbers such as Make Me Better (co-written with Ed Sheeran) and Time of Our Lives.

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