James Blunt has taken another shot at Atlantic Records in what is apparently a very public campaign to get dropped by his label. This time, Blunt is claiming that Atlantic asked him to quit using Twitter, even though they were the ones who forced him to start using it in the first place.
Blunt, who joined Twitter in late 2009, is arguably one of the funniest celebrities on on the platform, which he mainly uses to fire back at trolls who tweet about not liking him or his music. Along the way, he frequently puts himself down (“Am I the only one who thinks I look like Alan Partridge?” was a particular joy) and chides fans who tweet about their love for him. Yet despite his Twitter presence being called “quite brilliant” by comedian Ricky Gervais, Blunt told RadioTimes.com that Atlantic Records has asked him to stop tweeting.
My record label signed me up to Twitter. It’s not something I would choose to be on because I think it's remarkable that in this day and age we allow people to voice their opinions as if they were fact, and the fact that people take it seriously is remarkable...I thought: I am not going to take that seriously; I am going to laugh at them and I am going to laugh at myself. So as soon as I was on Twitter I started doing that. My record label immediately asked me to stop as it opened Pandora’s box.
Here are some of Blunt’s notable burns:
This isn't the first time Blunt has spoken out against his corporate overlords. Earlier this year, he publicly apologized for the over-proliferation of his 2005 hit “You’re Beautiful,” saying, “I think, at the end of the day, I was marketed by a record company to appeal to women during Desperate Housewives commercials and you lose 50 percent of the population in doing so."Despite the pushback from Atlantic, Blunt hasn’t quit tweeting to his 920,000+ fans and foes. He has offered to quit singing if you pay him the right amount of money. As long as he doesn't quit Twitter, we're fine with him crowdfunding an end to his career.
Photo via thesupermat/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)