In the 1962 movie ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ a Korean War veteran suffers from horrific flashbacks, later discovering that he amongst others in his corps have been brainwashed by the military and a shadowy corporation, to be used as pawns in the cold war.

By 2004, the premise is not so far fetched. So much so, that the movie has been updated, this time starring Denzel Washington as a Gulf War veteran suffering such flashbacks.

In this remake, his platoon has been brainwashed into believing that a lesser member of the group – a rich Senator’s son, now running for vice presidency – fought off a whole battalion of marauding Iraqis by himself, thus saving his blue collar colleagues.

Fast forward to mid-2005, and your summer, whether you like it or not, is being soundtracked by James Blunt’s debut ‘Back to Bedlam’.

Walk down any sunny high street and you’ll hear the aching tones of ‘You’re beautiful’, ‘High’  and ‘Wiseman’ emoting from the speakers of every other shop you go into; from Mrs Froversham’s antique spittoon emporium to Cash Converters, four shops down. The country, it would seem has gone mad for this tousle haired troubadour.

A few months earlier, few had heard of James Blunt. A half page interview appeared in a monthly rag, in which this ex-squaddie declared Margaret Thatcher to be his all time hero. At that point, most wrote him off as an ill-informed gangly bounder with a Borstal grip.

However, after an apparently impromptu appearance on Later with Jools Holland - at the request of Elton John, no less - Blunt’s career has since soared skywards. Some question the serendipity of this episode, as it has the grubby paw prints of record company politicking all over it. It transpires that they share the same management.

At the moment of writing, Blunt holds the number 1 spot for album and single.

The single is the ubiquitous ‘Beautiful’. Early in the song, Blunt spies a beautiful woman and declares that he has a plan. It soon transpires that his plan is to ….. do nothing.

Pedants will be at pains to point out that it’s not really much of a plan. Either he learned nothing about strategic planning, whilst on manoeuvres in Bosnia, or, as most suspect, it’s just another case of lazy lyricism, which is sadly all too acceptable these days.

The album itself doesn’t fare much better. It is heavily drenched in the kind of over-nuanced cod mysticism that is seen as musical genius in some quarters. Unrequited love vies for space amongst the wisemen and the angels.

The sad realisation is that it is a record devoid of emotion. Vocally he over-eggs the pudding such that it becomes an omelette. When he sings the word ‘high’, he predictably does so in a strained falsetto. Elsewhere he ‘sings’ like it’s karaoke night at a Sean Connery convention.

In interviews, Blunt comes across as being charmless and detached, and this sadly translates onto vinyl. His wan expression hangs over the record like a sepulchral deathmask. His vacant eyes apparently speak of lost love and haunting regret, though you’d certainly find more humanity looking into Columbo’s glass eye.

To his burgeoning army of fans though, James Blunt is the real deal. Edgier than Brian MacFadden (a pie-faced coward of a man with no military links whatsoever, except for that one time Westlife dressed up as sailors for a photoshoot) and less haggard than the melting waxwork of Norman Wisdom that is Robbie Williams.

The album was recorded in Los Angeles by Tom Rothrock, who has worked with genuine talents, such as the late Elliot Smith and Beck. (He worked on Beck’s misunderstood masterpiece ‘Sea Changes’) Singles aside, the bulk of the album is filler. The playing is lumpy and leaden and the sole inspiration for the session musicians seems to have been ‘contractual obligation’.

The role call of shame includes failed popstars (Amanda Ghost, Linda Perry) as well as a future member of Babyshambles (Thankfully not Pete Doherty doing backing vocals for crack money)

The most overwrought track on the album is ‘Goodbye my lover’. Seen by some as continuing in the grand tradition of a stripped down Jeff Buckley at his most heartbreaking, it actually sounds like Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite drowning kittens. But in a bad way.

The whole project has been flawlessly designed such that it cannot fail. With careful orchestration, the record company may well pull it off.  Blunt’s clothes bear all the hallmarks of a stylist’s intervention. The critical length of his stubble has been calculated to the nearest micron. And the positioning of his kiss curl has been decided by committee. It feels like it has been designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Even Abu Hamza would feel catered for.

In recent decades, the public perception of those in the armed forces has nosedived. In the 1940s it was a stiff upper lipped David Niven type. These days, it’s the kid at school who used to kill cats and had his own social worker. Dignity only seems to be afforded to modern day recruits if they were press ganged and had no choice. Sacha Baron Cohen, in the guise of Ali G, once famously asked ‘Don’t you have to be a bit thick to join the army?’

The British Army has always found it hard to shake off this image. In Blunt, they now have the man who can change all of that. He’s dashing. He’s brave. He’s public school educated. And he sings with a quaver.

The army could conceivably carpet bomb an Iraqi orphanage tomorrow, but a leaked photograph of a furrow-browed Blunt stroking a puppy would hush the disapproval.

By the time second single ‘High’ hits the top spot later this year, stories will emerge of his heroic antics in the warzone. By the time ‘Goodbye my lover’ becomes the Christmas number one, tattooed ex-colleagues, interviewed in grim B&Bs in provincial towns will talk of the time pop star James Blunt single-handedly saved their whole battalion from attack. Sat in poorly upholstered furniture, they will talk of how he manned the guns until back-up came. Off camera, they will mention the flashbacks that haunt them, and ask for their pills.

At the end of the day, cynics could only ever view him as the poster boy for British Army recruitment. A Stepfordian commodity that makes music in lieu of a pension fund for share holders.

To his fans though, he is a miracle worker with a voice that can reduce a rocking horse to tears and is the prime Candidate to usurp Robbie as the new King of Pop.

Ash Barua

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