Sam Smith Gloria

Sam may be armed with a voice that could launch a few hundred ships, but the London singer-songwriter's follow-up to 2020's Love Goes aims big by adding cameos ...

We’re not sure we can easily forgive the cheddar embedded in the final track, the Ed Sheeran collaboration ‘Who We Love’ – but no matter. It’s down-tempo, catchy and sensual, showing a new side to Sam. We’ve already heard ‘Love Me More’ and the brazenly seductive lead single and No.

Since their commercial breakthrough, Smith has achieved pop industry nirvana on more than one occasion, collecting four Grammys and singing 2015's Bond theme “ ...

I know Gloria is a “more is more” album, but plopping Sheeran on here feels — I don’t know, emotionally manipulative? “Fallin” has a deliciously sultry backing track, but it’s really Coco Jones’ voice that sells it. “I wish you roses while you can still smell them.” Heh. (After three albums’ worth of pining, it’s easy cheerlead Smith as they go out in search of a short-term “lov-ah.”) Luke did not have anything to do with “Unholy,” but the two have a long history of working together. My only real gripe with Gloria is the schmaltzy closer, “Who We Love” (*clears throat* that’s WHOM we love). [Believe](https://www.stereogum.com/2191750/the-number-ones-chers-believe/columns/the-number-ones/).” Later, “Perfect” (featuring a nice guest spot from Jessie Reyez) tonally pulls back with an electropop/R&B duet about embracing the stuff that makes you human. Jessie Reyez shows up again on the Koffee-assisted “Gimme,” Smith’s latest single, which perspires and undulates with a dancehall rhythm and come-hither lyrics. This is not to say that one Smith is “better” than the other. “Every day I’m tryin’ not to hate myself/ But lately, it’s not hurtin’ like it did before/ Maybe I am learning how to love me more.” Smith’s famous tenor, too, sells the sentiment and keeps it from sounding like a HomeGoods decorative slogan. [British GQ](http://(https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/sam-smith-interview-2022) last fall, “I love, I love, I love the drama. The Sam Smith of 2023 has come a long way from the Sam Smith who sang on Disclosure’s 2012 hit “Latch,” then parlayed that success into 2014’s Grammy-winning neo-soul triumph In The Lonely Hour.

The brilliance of “Unholy” shows up how little originality is to be found on this autotuned, cliché-ridden and inauthentic album.

[gendered best artist categories](https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music/2021/11/the-brit-awardss-decision-to-remove-gendered-categories-will-liberate-everyone), which shook up the industry’s understanding of gender (despite [backfiring this year](https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2023/01/brit-awards-all-men-shortlist-gender-neutral)). Smith is one of the UK’s foremost pop artists. “Lose You” is a club banger filled with longing – and yet more unnecessary autotune. “Every day I’m trying not to hate myself/But lately it’s not hurting like it did before,” Smith sings, their journey to self love summarised in just two lines, on the record’s opening track “Love Me More”. “Mummy don’t know Daddy’s getting hot at the body shop, doing something unholy,” is the irresistible refrain. Within this collection of comparably placid, unremarkable songs “Unholy”, which uses a scale often found in Middle Eastern music and bounces with a hyperpop beat, seems even more buoyant.

Gloria is the fourth album from the 30-year-old pop vocalist and features collaborations with Kim Petras, Koffee, Jessie Reyez and Ed Sheeran. Smith, who ...

The multi-award-winning singer's fourth studio album 'Gloria' was released on Friday.

I am deeply pleased that you stepped outside of your comfort zone. I LOVE IT SAM! [January 27, 2023] Thank you for this Sam, thank you thank you thank you!!!! “Gloria got me through some dark times and was a beacon for me in my life. I am eternally thankful to you.

With R&B and pop and disco and chorales, Sam Smith has reinvented their career with the wide-ranging 'Gloria.'

And it feels like a coming of age.” With songs that are both sacred and profane, with R&B and pop and disco and chorales, “Gloria” is all of that and more. But the spiritual themes of a song called “Gloria” sung by a medieval-sounding church choir could not be more obvious. The song features just the choir for the first minute, until Smith’s voice comes soaring in, evoking images of angels on a church ceiling; although they’ve described it as “my queer anthem,” the lyrics are fairly elliptical and again are counterintuitive to the music — demons and monsters in the first verse, empowerment in the second. 1 and the song of this summer, “I’m Not Here to Make Friends.” A collaboration with Reyez and DJ titan Calvin Harris, it’s embellished with a Chic groove, sparkling strings and a sassy title that will inspire countless don’t-f-with-me finger-pointing on dancefloors, but the real payoff comes in the response: “I’m not here to make friends/ I need a lover.” (And may we respectfully suggest that a remix featuring Dua Lipa would be stunning.) The album opens deceptively with “Love Me More,” a gospel-inflected self-care song that places its empowering but sometimes dark lyrics — “Every day I’m trying not to hate myself” — over a sincere, sing-song melody that seems more suited to a John Legend or Jon Batiste (or, honestly, a TV commercial). Smith’s fourth album, “Gloria” is not that at all — it’s a wild, wide-ranging night out that’s tinged with adventure and some danger, but still gets you home safely.

Sam Smith staged one of pop music's most groundbreaking queer reinventions. The confident Gloria doesn't quite live up to that.

That description captures the spirit of this album, which, after the striking breakthrough of Love Goes, feels more like a work of stretched boundaries in which Smith hasn’t quite caught up to themself. Accompanied by spare guitar strings, Smith sings about covering for a lying, angry ex-partner, building up to an affecting chorus: “Nobody taught you how to cry / But somebody showed you how to lie.” It’s arguably the strongest ballad Smith has ever recorded. The penultimate song, “Gloria,” would have worked as a less obvious, more confident closing statement. It’s actually not so much a song as a vibe — it’s less than two minutes long — featuring Smith singing ethereally about demons on their shoulder and monsters in their head. Gloria opens with “Love Myself,” a neo-soul midtempo track where Smith sings about not liking what they see in the mirror, but finding it less painful to deal with society’s reflection. They’ve metamorphosed out of their earlier cultural wallpaper era, when they sadly begged a lover to stay with them (in 2014’s “Stay With Me”) and declared themself “too good at goodbyes” (in 2017’s song of that title). “You’re no god, no leader,” they sing defiantly. In “Not God,” they adopt an accusatory tone addressing an entitled authoritarian ex-partner who likes to hear themself speak. The album’s other bid for dancefloor domination, “Not Here to Make Friends,” is comparatively underwhelming. Smith declares: “Thirty almost got me and I’m so over love songs,” but the overall vibe isn’t exactly euphoric — in part because the chorus, which leans on the titular reality TV catchphrase, feels stilted and doesn’t memorably rework the meme in any way. The album showcases Smith’s musical range; they tackle everything from ’90s Europop to neo-soul and attempt to expand their songwriting to include themes of sex, self-empowerment, and even a tinge of politics. And I feel like Gloria is the album I needed that I never had.”