James Morrison is a major sensation in the U.K., but he’s basically starting fresh in the U.S. And that’s just fine with him. His most recent album “The Awakening” is a fresh start musically for him, too, as he shifts from romantic pop to a more soulful sound.

“I just wanted to get rid of all the preconceived ideas about me — but not worry about it too much, either,” Morrison told MusicRadar. “My main goal was to come out of the studio with an album I could be proud of, and if it didn’t do well, I’d still feel the same way; to make a proper record that people could put on and not categorize as ‘pop’ or this or that — I wanted people to just ‘get’ it.”