James Blunt is a popular soft rock singer known for his staggering record sales of over 11 million copies of his debut album. Throughout his career, he has been signed to three major record labels, including WB Records, which helped massively in establishing his star image among other highly regarded musicians. His star image presents him as youthful through videos showing him riding motorcycles and interacting with people, and creative through special effects in his music videos. His star image must be both ordinary and extraordinary to appeal to audiences, and make him feel both present and absent through his fame and popularity.

1. Stars and Stardom

2. My star: James Blunt
James Blunt is a singer and song artist who
falls under the genre of soft rock.
He is a very popular artist who is known by
millions, as evidenced by his staggering
record sales (his very first album sold over 11
million copies).

3. Record Label
Throughout his career, James Blunt has
been signed to three different record
labels: WB Records, Atlantic records
and Custard records.
WB records has many hugely popular
artists under its label, such as
Paramore and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
This would help massively in the
creation of his star image as his image
would be up there with highly
regarded musicians, making people
more interested in him.
The record labels he signed to
afterwards were not quite as popular,
but that did not matter as his star
image had already been made.

4. Common Values
Youthfulness – James presents himself as a young
man riding a motorcycle and interacting with
many people in his video “Bonfire Heart”
(This could also be an example of
anti-authoritarianism, as motorcycles are often
used to symbolise that)
Creativity/Originality – In the video for the
song “Satellites”, special effects are used to
create fantasy sci-fi looking helmets which
spell out the lyrics of the song as they’re
sung.

5. Richard Dyer’s Features
A star is an image, not a
real person, that is
constructed (as any other
aspect of fiction is) out of a
range of materials.
Stars are commodities produced and consumed
on the strength of their meanings.
Stars depend upon a range of subsidiary
media – magazines, TV, radio, the
internet – in order to construct an image
for themselves which can be marketed to
their target audiences.
The star image is made up of a range of
meanings which are attractive to the target
audiences

6. Paradoxes
Richard Dyer invented two paradoxes for star images.
1. The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer.
2. The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer.
1. James Blunt appears
in his promotional
photos as a normal,
down to earth man
despite his star image
and overwhelming
success. However, in his
videos he tries
different, very
extraordinary ideas,
creating an
extraordinary image at
the same time
2. The star’s image
makes them feel closer
to the viewer, but in
reality the star’s fame
and popularity makes
them incredibly
distant, as they have
millions of fans and
aren’t close to the
majority of them

7. Our Star
The image we will create for our star will be similar to James Blunt in many
ways. We want to make them seem normal and down to earth so they can
be related to by the target audience.
We’ll achieve this through aspects such as plain, casual clothing, a regular,
accessible location and a narrative that people can relate to.