A new chapter

SAM Smith’s new album Love Goes, signals the start of a new chapter, reflecting upon two beautiful, if tumultuous years of their life, and moving forth with a looser, more euphoric sound.

The Grammy, Oscar and Brit Award-winning artiste (who identifies as non-binary) is the modern master of grandiose, raw balladry: songs about heartbreak and longing sung in arenas around the world.

Written between the ages of 26 and 28, Love Goes features songs that also mirror the healing process of heartbreak, from its most painful moments through to resolution. But its formation is more boisterous and exuberant than anything Smith has made before.

A session with Calvin Harris birthed Promises, an international smash that affirmed what Smith had long hoped for: that they could be embraced for the dance-spun pop music they wanted to make too.

What followed was a string of singles crafted with the producers they had admired: the Scandinavian pop behemoths like Max Martin, ILYA, Shellback and Stargate. Dancing With A Stranger, a lacquer smooth and seductive R&B track with Normani was a critical and commercial success, as was the dance-pop leaning How Do You Sleep?.

They were all songs written and recorded while Smith was on tour, and formed the basis of their third album, then called To Die For. But shortly before its release, the coronavirus pandemic happened and Smith decided to put the release on hold. This gave him the chance to re-evaluate the album.

“It wasn’t ready,” they say in reflection. “I was on such a fast train of work, travelling and performing that I needed to come home to get some perspective on it all.”

And so that’s what Smith did. They returned home to London and re-examined the songs that made up that record’s tracklist and reformed them into something that felt more representative of their mindset.

Those aforementioned singles still appear as bonus tracks, but “there were a few songs that I’d written that I just fell in love with, and they fit,”

Smith says. “As soon as I changed the title to Love Goes, I just started to get the shape of what this record word was going to be.”

The Smith you might know has made the record no one expected them to. When they were a teenager, they always yearned to make the pop music they spent their life admiring: crafted by powerful women. There was a frivolity Smith strived for at the core of what they created, though: the ability to create a persona, and to play around with it. In the process of creating Love Goes, they allowed themselves to delve into that too.

“I played characters with some of these songs.”

Case in point: the powerful lead single Diamonds. Co-written and produced by OzGo and Shellback in a London session, Smith says it’s sung from the perspective of “a really rich woman in a mansion whose husband had just divorced her, taken all of her diamonds and just left her with nothing – a Miss Havisham vibe!” Smith proudly and bitterly bids farewell to the fictional lover and their riches here.

Smith’s debut album In The Lonely Hour was released in 2014. Certified 2x platinum in the USA and 8x platinum in the United Kingdom, and eventually earning them four Grammys, it positioned Smith as the hallmark voice of their generation. – Universal Music