James Blunt

Back to Bedlam arrived in 2004, with You’re Beautiful becoming the widest-travelling introduction. The song’s direct melodic line can overshadow the range around it. Goodbye My Lover gives the voice a much more exposed piano setting, while High takes another route towards an open chorus. The album’s identity rests partly on those changes in pressure, with the singing remaining recognisable through them.

Blunt’s earlier military service forms part of his public story, but the records are most useful when heard through their own musical details. The phrasing can make a line sound uncertain without losing its shape, and the arrangements often wait before adding their full instrumental weight.

All the Lost Souls followed in 2007. 1973 has a more pronounced rhythmic ease, placing the voice in a fuller pop-rock setting than the most familiar moments of the debut. Some Kind of Trouble in 2010 gave songs such as Stay the Night a brighter, more outward-facing movement. Later albums continued to change the production and emotional perspective rather than leaving the catalogue fixed around its first enormous hit. A return to the early records is rewarding when the quieter and more buoyant songs receive equal attention. They reveal a singer whose particular tone can make different kinds of pop writing feel connected, from an isolated piano phrase to a chorus intended for a much larger audience.