James Blunt had to "get over" trying to chase the success of his first album.
James Blunt
The 43-year-old singer's debut album 'Back to Bedlam' achieved worldwide success when it was released in 2004, selling 11 million copies and topping the UK album chart whilst reaching the second spot in the US.
However, the 'You're Beautiful' hitmaker has admitted his subsequent releases - 2007's 'All The Lost Souls', 2010's 'Some Kind of Trouble', and 2013's 'Moon Landing' - haven't been as popular, and he found it difficult learning to remove himself from the fear of "public reaction".
He said: "My first album hit big. In America, my subsequent albums didn't really hit big. And so you're always thinking about, I suppose, the public reaction ... They're always in the room, slightly. So it's been nice to just get over that. Yeah ... I just had to get over it."
And the 'Goodbye My Lover' musician has now managed to do just that, as he says his upcoming fifth studio venture 'The Afterlove' was written "with a certain kind of confidence" which didn't have "an audience in mind".
He said of his new album: "I just wanted to do something not with an audience in mind anymore. Just something for myself. It just allowed me to write songs with a certain kind of confidence, rather than a kind of apology."
James says his newest record - which is set for release on Friday (24.03.17) - is "a whole new thing" and he's "really enjoying" where he is with his music career.
He told Billboard.com's Pop Shop Podcast: "I've had four albums in the past and it feels like there was kind of a different music career. This [new album] feels like a whole new thing. After my last tour, I went to Australia for a while and I came back and said, 'You know what? I'm back in the music business in a way that I haven't been before, in a way that I'm really enjoying it.'"
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