James Blunt is an emotional softie. And while some ridicule the British singer-songwriter for his tenderness and his overly sensitive nature, millions of others swoon at Blunt’s vulnerable tenor — a voice that is both raspy and feminine.
Blunt, who plays the Ogden Theatre on Tuesday, knows this all too well. His breakout single was, after all, a bruised ballad titled “You’re Beautiful.” He’s all too aware that he and his career will forever be defined by that one song that was omnipresent in 2005 and 2006.
It’s kind of ridiculous that a song inspired by a single moment represents a songwriter’s entire output. But that’s just the way it is in this iTunes generation.
“It’s one out of 20 songs I’ve released on my albums, and it was about a second in my life,” Blunt said recently from the south coast of England. “It was a very personal song about a person I knew, but there were other songs along the way that weren’t just about a second in my life — and those are just as important.
“We focus on singles in today’s world, but thankfully people went out and got that entire album — and not just the song.”
To Blunt’s credit, he was playing 90-minute sets on the headlining tour supporting his 2005 debut, “Back to Bedlam.” (Some beginning artists supporting a debut play for less than an hour.) That involved a number of covers, of course, including an uninspired take on the Pixies’ “Where is My Mind” and a freewheeling version of Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America” — both of which were sung at his late-October show in Denver in 2006, his last stop in the Mile High City.
But the 90-minute sets also required Blunt to sing most of the songs off his debut every night of the tour — something that helped him not get burned out on just one song.
“I guess I was lucky that when I had to tour, I only had 10 songs, and I had to play all of them — not just have one — every night,” he said.
With the recent arrival of Blunt’s sophomore record “All the Lost Souls,” the singer has another 10 songs to work with. And while the record and his recent shows have taken a critical beating — including (but not limited to) the use of the adjectives “annoying,” “dreary,” “boring,” “tame,” “clunky” and “dull” — the fans are still happy.
Blunt is again popular on the FM band, and his Tuesday show at the Ogden is sold out — at $35 a ticket, even.
Blunt is also a happy man. He wrote half of “All the Lost Souls” while on the road for “Bedlam,” and he wrote the other half at his new home in Ibiza — the notorious party island in the Balearic Sea off the coast of eastern Spain.
Writing an album on Ibiza — also known and celebrated for its natural beauty and pearly beaches — sounds almost as difficult as writing on the road, but Blunt made it happen.
“Once I had the words for the songs I wrote on the road, it was difficult finding the time to write given the amount of workload we had, but it was all about nailing down those moments. In Ibiza, that was my time to reflect.”
Blunt lives in the island’s secluded countryside, but he said, “I like it for both, the serene and the busy. Sometimes it’s nice to find seclusion and peace, but it’s also great being able to go out when you want to.”
The singer said he wasn’t nervous about following up the mammoth success of “Bedlam,” which went double-platinum in the United States for sales exceeding 2 million — mainly because he doesn’t define success as others might.
“The (first) album had done its thing, and that was great,” he said. “I’ve never really thought about success as the number of units you sell. It’s about how much expression you capture in a song. I guess I was thrown by the industry and media obsession with commercial success rather than emotional success. For me, units sold doesn’t mean anything — the most successful musicians are that way because of emotion.”
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com
James Blunt
Pop. 8 p.m. Tuesday, Ogden Theatre, with Sara Bareilles opening. Sold out. or 303-830-8497.
