{"id":1879,"date":"2011-03-18T11:43:09","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T18:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=1879"},"modified":"2011-03-18T11:43:09","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T18:43:09","slug":"bleu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/03\/bleu\/","title":{"rendered":"BLEU"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/BLEU-M-Review-December2010.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1880\" title=\"BLEU-M-Review-December2010\" src=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/BLEU-M-Review-December2010.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/BLEU-M-Review-December2010.jpg 400w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/BLEU-M-Review-December2010-300x187.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>BLEU<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Four <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>bleutopia.com<\/p>\n<p>Bleu\u2014also known as singer, songwriter and instrumentalist William James McAuley III\u2014boasts a power-pop sound that embraces rousing anthems, outsized arrangements and the kind of insistent singalongs that might give the E Street Band a run for their money. After taking honors in Boston\u2019s annual Battle of the Bands competition, McAuley joined L.E.O., a group that shared members with Chicago, Hanson and Jellyfish while paying homage to, naturally, ELO. His on-the-job training has served him well.<\/p>\n<p>Fans won over by McAuley\u2019s three earlier albums under the Bleu banner were sufficiently inspired to contribute $40,000 to finance <em>Four<\/em>\u2019s production. Happily, they got a good return on their investment. Boasting a wealth of hooks and retro references, <em>Four<\/em> is the work of an artist who relishes his roots. \u201cI was born in Green Bay\/Raised in VA\/Now I live in L.A. \u2026 but if you ask me where I\u2019m from\/Boston!\u201d he proclaims on the barnstorming \u201cB.O.S.T.O.N.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, McAuley carefully mines his influences, from Sam Cooke and Van Morrison to Paul McCartney and\u2014wouldn\u2019t you know it\u2014ELO. But he\u2019s best when he\u2019s expressing his own quirky personality on \u201cEvil Twin\u201d and the breathless \u201cI\u2019ll Know It When I See It.\u201d Ultimately, it\u2019s these various shades of Bleu that make <em>Four<\/em> all the more fascinating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BLEU Four bleutopia.com Bleu\u2014also known as singer, songwriter and instrumentalist William James McAuley III\u2014boasts a power-pop sound that embraces rousing anthems, outsized arrangements and the kind of insistent singalongs that might give the E Street Band a run for their money. After taking honors in Boston\u2019s annual Battle of the Bands competition, McAuley joined L.E.O., [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[196,1422,1424,1334,1423,10159,1426,1425],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1881,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1879\/revisions\/1881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}