James Blunt has promised fans that he will change his name to ‘anything’ the public wants if his album returns to number one – 20 years after it was first released.
In 2004, James Blunt released Back To Bedlam, a hugely successful album which contained songs including You’re Beautiful, High, Wisemen, and Goodbye My Lover.
In celebration of Back To Bedlam’s 20th anniversary, the singer is re-releasing the album and going on tour – he’s also made a pretty big promise to fans if the album gets to number one.
On Radio X’s The Chris Moyles Show, the singer claimed: ‘I have signed up to changing my name to whatever the public want – they can change my name.
‘It’s a genuine thing. 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.’
The singer confirmed: ‘Yeah. I swear on Brian’s life and my life. 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?’
The singer then joked: ‘But you know, as long as it’s not, you know, Blunty McBluntface.’
James explained to Chris that this was a way to try and encourage fans to purchase the new album, following the huge success when Back To Bedlam was released 20 years ago.
He revealed that High was the first chart-topping single from the album, followed by the success of Wiseman and You’re Beautiful.
‘High was the first single,’ James said. ‘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!’
He added: ‘And then we put 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!’
Back To Bedlam spent 10 weeks in the number-one album slot in the UK charts.
The album’s success also stuck around for ages with 40 weeks in the top 10 albums, 47 in the top 20, and 130 in the top 100.
At the time, Back to Bedlam was the biggest-selling album of all time by a British male solo artist, selling 11 million copies worldwide and more than three million copies in the UK.
Since the initial success of his album in 2004, the singer has released several more albums.
His second album, All the Lost Souls was released in 2007 and reached number one in 12 countries.
He also released: Some Kind of Trouble (2010), Moon Landing (2013), The Afterlove (2017), Once Upon a Mind (2019) and Who We Used to Be (2023) – all with varying levels of success.