Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 13/02/06
Label: Atlantic

Not the drug-fuelled bender that the title would suggest, "The Bedlam Sessions" is essentially a live album, recorded in Ireland, with an early demo of the ubiquitous "You're Beautiful" tacked on the end. In the week of the Brit Awards and with Mothers Day round the corner, this could make an attractive gift for those 37 members of the population apparently yet to fork out for "Back To Bedlam".

Of course, in industry terms it's hard to knock Blunt. After selling two million plus albums in the UK, he literally sh*ts ten pound notes (what a cute turn of phrase - Reviews Ed). Now scaling the Billboard Top Ten at rapid speed, he probably defecates greenbacks too. Such success isn't hard to fathom. In a nutshell, it's down to one song: "You're Beautiful". Clichéd, hackneyed and whining it might be, but it's also superseded Robbie Williams' "Angels" as the tune your average member of the British public wants played on their wedding day. Or at their funeral. It also makes for a cracking ringtone.

But if Blunt's business credentials are beyond reproach, administering a hefty blow to his artistic talents is a relative breeze. What he inflicts here to covers of Crowded House's "Fall At Your Feet" and The Pixies' "Where Is My Mind" would have had his ancestors deported to Australia. The latter especially, to paraphrase someone else's wise words, is "neutered and spayed". Reducing Black Francis' demonic howl to an impotent pipsqueak, you dread to think what further damage he might inflict. Literally, it's Blunted.

His own material at least stays within a familiar and ambitionless pen of dreariness. Rarely breaking out of mid-tempo four-chord structures and executed with the plodding professionalism that only seasoned session musicians can bring, Blunt's songs walk a boll*ckless line of meaninglessness. Lyrically, it's nothing. A "face" is followed by a "crowded place"; if there's a "sky" you know it's going to be "hiiiigh". This is possibly due to some process of reverse evolution. If Coldplay are a watered down derivative of Radiohead and Jeff Buckley and Keane are watered down version of Coldplay, then Blunt is the same formula distilled yet further. Tellingly, at the conclusion of "Goodbye My Lover", he croons, "I'm so hollow, baby. I'm so, so hollow."

"The Bedlam Sessions" then, is basically a record company wheeze to squeeze the last remaining margins from these instantly forgettable songs. The only surprise is that early versions of "You're Beautiful" sound uncannily like Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight". A scant and comforting thought this. Perhaps things could have been much, much worse.

    by Adam Webb