James Blunt: All The Lost Souls DLX version on CD/DVD in deluxe edition. This particular edition was published in Europe in publishing company Atlantic in cooperation with Custard Records on 20. January 2009.

JAMES BLUNT's sensational anniversary! His current album All The Lost Souls, which reached number one on the charts, went triple gold and won an Echo Award in February, has been on the charts continuously for a year! This means that the British bard has probably surpassed the success of his spectacular debut Back To Bedlam: The song is called Love Love Love and it's a gorgeous, quintessential JAMES BLUNT ballad that shows him at his strongest and will be released digitally. According to JAMES BLUNT, we may be getting older, but we haven't really changed since elementary school. "Back then, we gossiped in the schoolyard about who was kissing who, who said what about who, who was unsympathetic because they wore the wrong clothes. Now we write about who kissed who, who said what, and who wore what - only on a global scale." In the nearly three years since the release of JAMES BLUNT's fabulous breakthrough album Back To Bedlam, 12 million albums have been sold worldwide. It has reached number one in 18 countries and the Top 10 in 35 more. The Grammy nominations list includes five Grammy nominations, two MTV Awards, two Brit Awards and an Echo. When You're Beautiful reached number one on the Billboard 100, it was the first time a British title had reached number one in the US since Elton John's Candle In The Wind (1997). The album also climbed to number one in Germany, where it reached triple platinum, and also hit No. 2 on the chart with You're Beautiful! Some of the songs on his second album, All The Lost Souls, also tell the story of his seemingly sudden leap to superstardom and the experiences such a story entails. The ten-song cycle about life and death shows the great maturity that JAMES BLUNT has achieved since Back to Bedlam. He describes his debut as "a very honest, almost naive collection of thoughts, feelings and experiences. I wrote it without expecting anyone else to hear it but me." This time around, he knows a large audience is eagerly awaiting his songs about "the ups and downs of this journey," but he doesn't believe the fame he's gained will create distance between him and his listeners. "Just because I have the dubious status of 'celebrity' doesn't make me a lesser person. I'm experiencing the same thing, only now my mother finds out right away," he laughs in reference to his frequent appearance in the tabloid media. If you listen to All The Lost Souls, it's clear that BLUNT sings about the things that unite us, not the things that divide us. We're all looking for love, safety and security, especially in times when they seem to be the hardest to find. It is this journey that interests JAMES BLUNT, and All Souls Lost attempts to trace the path we take on this journey. "We go through this exciting experience called 'life' and try to understand it. Equally, we're trying to figure out why we're here in the first place," he explains. "I love life. I enjoy it, but at the same time it worries me. And as it passes, you realize it's really short. You inevitably wonder what you can actually make of it, where to find the depth and understand the meaning of it all, why we do the things we do to fulfill it. I think we all have that experience." All The Lost Souls was recorded while JAMES was on tour with Back To Bedlam. While on the road, he wrote five songs and tried them out in front of a live audience, which proved to be a very rewarding touchstone. And when it came to writing the rest of the album, he had to get off the merry-go-round and settle down. In the summer of 2006, JAMES BLUNT went to Ibiza for a break. But it took him a while to get used to the silence. "It was the first time I could take a breath and look at what had actually happened in three years," he says. Last winter, he went to the island again and got help from a completely unexpected source. So I sat in my room in my coat, hat and fingerless gloves and played the piano. It was cold and the caretaker said I was living like a monk. The fact is, when you're cold, nobody's around, and you don't understand the local language, you can write songs like, "Hey, this is terrible. However, the songs I wrote in the summer, like when I just came out of the club, were much more upbeat." To bring in other influences, JAMES asked his publisher to pair him with people who don't act like typical musicians on the album, "to get away from that." And although JAMES BLUNT wrote most of the album himself, at his special request, he had collaborators such as Mark Batson (Dr. Dre, Dave Matthews Band), Jimmy Hogarth (with whom he also wrote some songs on Bedlam), Steve NcEwan, Eg (cq) White and Max Martin. Musically, the album takes inspiration from the great artists of the seventies: 'Fleetwood Mac, Don McLean, Elton John, maybe a little Steely Dan and, with any luck, a bit of Bowie,' he smiles. "And if you want me to lie, I'll throw in Led Zeppelin." All The Lost Souls opens with the groovy first single of 1973, a slightly nostalgic throwback to the old days, dedicated to the friends he had fun with. The vagaries and contortions that fame can bring are told in One Of The Brightest Stars and Annie. Carry You Home and I'll Take Everything are about the fragility of life, and I Really Want You and Same Mistake show JAMES BLUNT more vulnerable than any of his previous songs. The album cover is also unusual. It contains more than 1,300 photographs that cover designer Nin Bowse has combined into one image. Looking at the whole thing, the author's outline emerges clearly in the shades. While maintaining overall consistency, different neon-lit typos were also used for each letter in the inscription. The photographs depict JAMES BLUNT at various stages of his life in all manner of clothing, for example as a pupil, as a child, as an artist, in a suit, in a shirt, bare-chested, etc., etc. The idea came about because JAMES BLUNT didn't actually want his portrait on the cover. "So we just took a couple hundred...." The former Sandhurst University student, who, as everyone knows by now, spent an extended period as a blue helmeted officer in Kosovo, likes to point out that he always finds language inadequate, but finds in his songs the freedom to say things he can't say with words. "My music is very autobiographical," he explains. "It's my way of self-expression and it's a necessity for me." And for those who think that sounds too dramatic, he likes to counter with a Jeff Buckley quote: "Sensitivity has nothing to do with weakness. It means having a painfully obvious sensitivity, so that when a flea lands on a dog, it seems as loud as a sonic boom." The album All The Lost Souls, like Bedlam, was produced by Tom Rothrock, and when it was recorded in Los Angeles, JAMES BLUNT brought his live band into the studio. That alone makes it very different from Bedlam, because at the time the studio was full of studio musicians and JAMES played most of the covers himself. This time "I sat at the guitar or piano, played the songs to the band and explained to them what I had in mind. Since we'd been touring together for two and a half years, they knew exactly what I wanted, so they completed the skeleton of the songs in no time. With a new album under their belt, JAMES BLUNT is back on stage. "Travelling is the most fun I can have," he says with enthusiasm. "It's the best invention ever." But even if all the hype and fame ends one day, it's not quite over yet. In the song I Can't Hear The Music, JAMES BLUNT sings in a quiet voice that even when the applause of the fans has passed and the curtain is drawn for the last time, one thing will remain: The Music: For BLUNT, it's a song of hope, a final reminder of what it's all about: the chorus sums it up, "And when I hear the music and the audience is gone / I'll be here dancing alone." This is a song of hope. I do it because I love it, because I love it, even though the fans may only be with me for a limited time." In the spring, JAMES BLUNT will bring his passion back to German stages.© WMGG/tbe

Album spans genres Rock, Pop, Pop Rock and Soft Rock. CD + DVD Deluxe Edition.