Morose no more

TNP PHOTO: Benjamin Seetor

BEFORE Adele cornered the market on soulful British pop singers who traded in songs of piercing heartbreak, there was James Morrison.

Looking a little like Coldplay’s Chris Martin, staring at you from his music videos and publicity pictures with those sad blue eyes ... he was in danger of becoming too morose.

But at his one-hour set for MTV Sessions on Sunday, recorded at Waterfront Studios, Resorts World Sentosa, the 27-year-old singer was anything but, peppering his 60-minute set with jokes, mostly bad, but always cute.

His new album, The Awakening, released last September, has some of Morrison’s most emotionally raw lyrics – the album was written in the wake of Morrison’s dad’s death in 2010, after battling with alcoholism for many years – but there’s also a keen optimism in his new sound.

Speaking to LOUD yesterday, Morrison said he was “thinking a lot about life and death” when he wrote the new album – his father’s death came after he became a parent in 2009, when longtime girlfriend Gill gave birth to their daughter Elsie.