James Blunt has said he will change his name to “whatever the public wants” if his re-released debut album tops the charts 20 years after the record first came out.
Despite being receiving an NME Award for Worst Album, Blunt’s 2004 released Back To Bedlam is the biggest selling album of all time by a British male solo artist and spent 10 weeks at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart.
It is set to be reissued for the 20th anniversary and if it can catapult Blunt back to the top spot again, the Wiltshire-born star has agreed to change his name officially by deed poll.
Reflecting on the album’s original release during an appearance on The Chris Moyles Radio Show on Radio X on Monday, Blunt said his own expectations were initially quite low.
He explained: “We did a thing called a soft release, because the label said, ‘We’re going to whack it out, and then we count the first week’s sales,’ and I thought, ‘God, don’t count the first week’s sales, because I don’t know many people. It’s just my mum, and my dad, and my sisters, they’re the only people who are going to buy it in the first week. Can we think about second week sales?’ So, you know, who my mum and dad might have told, so then buy it in the second week. So we put out ‘High,’ and that got a bit of radio visibility, all over Radio X at that stage – this is my natural home!
“And then we put [single] Wisemen out, and the album got into the top 20, and then came the killer, You’re Beautiful, in 2005 at that stage, and the rest is a terrible, terrible history!”
Explaining to radio host Moyles his ploy to see history repeat its self, he said: “The label are going to launch a campaign to get it back to number one after 20 years. How do you do that? How do you get it back to number one at 20 years’ old? So, what they’ve made me sign up to do is if it reaches number one, I have signed up to changing my name to whatever the public want – they can change my name.”
“And this is not just an act of desperation, it’s a genuine thing,” he continued. “I swear on my life and the life of my one fan – Brian from Glasgow – I will change my name should it hit number one.”
He then clarified to the astounded radio host: “To whatever the public want – and of course the public are going to kind, they’re not going to go for anything that rhymes with Blunt are they?”
Blunt then put forward the suggestions of “James cucking funt” and “Blunty McBluntface”.
The 20th anniversary edition of Blunt's Back to Bedlam is scheduled for release on October 11 so people have a little time yet to come up with some alternatives.
