Talk:James Blunt

Well sourced content removed (discussion of scurvy news reports)

@Koompfah19:, @Risker:

Can you explain why this content was removed? "In August, 2020 it was reported that Blunt had developed scurvy from eating a meat only carnivore diet for two months."

The Independent and Self (magazine) are reliable sources. The story was also covered in many other UK newspapers. The definition of trivia is "details, considerations, or pieces of information of little importance or value". How is James Blunt having scurvy of little importance? How many other celebrities or musicians have been diagnosed with scurvy in the 21st century? I believe the content should be restored. The content itself is a single line and was positioned in the "Personal life​" section. I don't see how this content is off-mission. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:57, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

References

"James Blunt did something stupid in uni", or even "James Blunt had a bad diet while in uni" does not constitute an encyclopedic or in any way significant fact about Blunt. There are all kinds of "well-sourced" silly stories about Blunt out there; I can think of at least 30, although that's probably because I've paid attention over the years. Just because something is appropriately sourced doesn't mean it should be in this article. Why do you think it's important to mention in this article that Blunt did something silly when he was in his late teens, when he wasn't a notable person, there's no indication that it had anything to do with his future notability, and it's the kind of thing that probably more than half of all university/college students do at some point? It's not only off-mission, it's no more important than that he dyed his hair purple at one point. (And no, don't bother searching for references for that, I made it up; but there are lots of similarly irrelevant stories out there about Blunt.) Risker (talk) 19:56, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I am looking at this and I have made a mistake. I didn't read one of the sources correctly. I didn't realise this was about his university days, I thought he got scurvy in August 2020. The media have been quite deceptive about this, its not mentioned in most of the sources. The way it has been presented especially in the headlines I thought he had scurvy this year from trying the carnivore diet which is the latest fad diet in the west. It turns out it was a long time ago whilst at uni. So yes the story is sensationalist, so I agree it is trivia. I agree leave it off the article. Sorry about that! Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:06, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

No worries, Psychologist Guy - an easy mistake to make. The media is sometimes so desperate to fill column inches and airtime that they treat genuinely insignificant matters as equivalent to state secrets, for some reason. The irony is that there's a pretty good chance the story isn't even true, and that it's just something Blunt made up; he's been known to do that. Risker (talk) 00:56, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Amanda Ghost helping to promote Blunt

I don't see anything in the biography about Amanda Ghost collaborating with Blunt on the song "You're Beautiful", and then dragging him around to various labels trying to get him signed to a new contract. Sources exist for this stuff:

• Interview with Joni Mitchell in which Ghost says, "With James Blunt, I took his music around to every label I could think of to try and get them interested and they all passed..."
• BMI reprint of MusicWorld piece, "Ghost began channeling her creative energies into songwriting and, through mutual friends, started writing with a rising singer/songwriter named James Blunt. Together with Sacha Skarbek, they composed two songs for Blunt’s debut album, including international hit 'You’re Beautiful.' "
• The Guardian in 2011, "While living in Los Angeles... a mutual friend introduced Ghost to a soldier with designs on becoming a singer. She invited James Blunt over to LA, and they wrote together. 'When I came back to London with him, I put [him] on some gigs and took him to a few record labels,' she recalls. 'I wasn't making any money out of it, it was just because I wanted to help him out.' "

Ghost told The Guardian with a bit of hyperbole that she co-wrote "You're Beautiful" five years before it became a huge hit. That would be the year 2000, when Blunt was still in military service. Clearly she collaborated with him in 2003 when they were both in Los Angeles, and the song waited only two years to become a hit. She said the song was written in one afternoon. Binksternet (talk) 18:38, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

All of these reports are sourced to Ghost saying that she did these things. There are no contemporaneous or third-party reports of anything other than getting co-writing credit for a couple of songs, and singing some backup vocals; they're covered under the articles for the songs/album. (She also has a co-write credit for the song Billy and backup-vocal credit for Wisemen, all from the same Back to Bedlam album.) The timing in the Guardian article doesn't make any sense; the song wasn't copyrighted in 2000 (it's copyright 2003) so there's no way it was finished then. As for Los Angeles in 2003, that's when Blunt (already signed to a label, and having a music publishing contract as well) was fine-tuning and recording Back to Bedlam. Blunt says that the (core of the) song was written in just a few minutes after the event that inspired it, so cleaning it up in an afternoon would be reasonable, if not expected. There's an early demo floating around from 2002 that used to be posted on Blunt's website 15 or so years ago, and it's obvious the song had some polishing done to it (that's what Skarbek and Ghost did), but that the core was already there. I can't link to any legit copies of it, unfortunately. Incidentally, the interview you've attributed to Joni Mitchell is actually an interview with PRS for Music which Mitchell has posted on her site because it mentions that Ghost interviewed Mitchell; we at Wikipedia would probably debate whether or not the inclusion of that entire article is actually "fair use". As best I can tell, the only person who says Ghost knew Blunt before being asked to help out on Back to Bedlam is...Ghost. Given Blunt already had a manager in 2002 (the same one as Elton John), it's unlikely that Ghost would have been getting him gigs or introducing him to recording companies. Now, I'm the first to admit that record companies are notorious for re-writing the histories of their performers - when Back to Bedlam was released, they were saying Blunt was only 23, which would have had him joining the military after university at the ripe old age of 17 - but even still, Ghost has the third writing credit (they are listed in order of contribution to the song) for YB, which indicates that she had something to do with it, but not a lot. She says she made millions on the song, but that would be true even if she was only receiving 5% of the royalties, given its ubiquity. Risker (talk) 03:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Returning the song snippet to the article

I want to return the snippet of You're Beautiful to the article. I don't actually understand why it has been removed; it was considered important enough in the article back when it was made a Good Article back in 2008, and nothing has changed. I put it to you, Binksternet, to demonstrate why it should not be included. It is the song for which Blunt is best known, it made his fortune and his name (and arguably his entire career), and it gives the reader that snapshot of what Blunt is known for. Risker (talk) 03:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

As per usual, the GA review of this article was by one person who was the sole decider about listing. I wouldn't put so much stock into the state of the article at the time of GA listing. One person doesn't catch all the problems.

The first problem with the .ogg file is that it was 30 seconds, about 14% of the song, though our guideline at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music samples says 10% maximum. It should be 20 seconds long. Amazingly enough, there is a file that has been edited down to 20 seconds: File:James Blunt - You're Beautiful (Edit).ogg.

The requirement of WP:NFCCP #8 is that every non-free music listening sample should have "Contextual significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." The usual solution for this requirement is to describe what the music is doing – maybe about style or instrumentation or performance – making a connection between what is heard on the sample and what is written in the literature. Otherwise, the caption underneath the listening example could stand by itself as bare text. The caption of the disputed file said, " 'You're Beautiful,' Blunt's break-out hit was the third UK single and first US single from Back to Bedlam." Nobody would ever have to hear a listening sample to understand that sentence. So the listening sample is not needed if that's the message below it.

When I'm doing a listening sample, I first have a musical concept that I want to illustrate for the reader's sense of hearing. Like I might want to say that a song was known for its distorted guitars, as noticed by music critics. So then I would create a listening sample highlighting the distorted guitars, and I would cite the observations of the music critics.

I recently included a listening sample at the album page, Back in the High Life. The sample has musical information to convey.

Hope that helps. Binksternet (talk) 03:40, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Serious question...

... should his (joke) threats to release more new music w/r/t the Joe Rogan/Spotify controversy be included in the article? It seems trivial but does show that he is wading into the debate. —AFreshStart (talk) 17:48, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Age should be checked

James Blunt claims he changed his age on his Wikipedia page -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:29, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Well yeah, way back in the early part of his career, his promotional materials proclaimed him to be between 2 and 4 years younger than his actual age. And given the number of IP edits back in those days, I'd think it's reasonably likely that he or someone close to him edited the page. As far as I can see, the most recent change was someone coming along and making him 10 years younger because they couldn't do math. Risker (talk) 11:25, 22 August 2023 (UTC)