In short
Sam Smith discusses their new album Hazel Eyes, a shift from earlier heartbreak/unrequited-love material to “requited” queer love. They describe growing up singing at UK holiday camps, winning talent awards, and feeling dysphoria about their recorded voice. After a homophobic attack at 18 and industry feedback implying femininity wasn’t “attractive,” they say they adjusted presentation for safety, then pushed back. They clarify they came out at 10, not 21, and that early success wasn’t “hiding.” They explain writing Him as a response to pronoun neutrality feedback, and say My Guy is about partner Christian Cowan (a fashion designer). They detail studio techniques like creating instruments/choirs with their own voice, plus genre-spanning production and voice changes from touring.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOSam Smith's Rise to Fame
0:11 to 0:25
Exploring Sam Smith's debut album and its impact on their career.
“Complete your setup with savings on select monitors and must-have electronics and accessories.”
Sam Smith's Rise to Fame
0:43 to 1:26
Exploring Sam Smith's debut album and its impact on their career.
“with a debut album called In the Lonely Hour.”
Discovering Their Voice
1:26 to 3:36
Sam shares their early singing experiences and insecurities about their voice.
“And Sam Smith sat down with our producer, Jeffrey Masters.”
Identity and Self-Expression
3:36 to 6:17
A discussion on Sam's journey with gender expression and public perception.
“But in recordings, though, you recognize how you sound, right?”
Navigating Industry Expectations
6:17 to 8:49
Sam reflects on industry pressures regarding their presentation and style.
“The stereotype would be that it would be less safe to present feminine in this small village.”
The Evolution of Love Songs
8:49 to 11:43
Sam discusses the shift from unrequited love to reciprocated love in their music.
“And that's something I've had to come to a peace with because it's not like I was hiding.”
Musical Diversity in 'Hazel Eyes'
11:43 to 14:00
Sam describes the variety of genres in their new album and personal expression.
“And you've always been very explicit that your songs come from a very personal place.”
Exploring Genre Freedom in Music
14:00 to 17:41
Sam Smith discusses the diverse genres in their album Hazel Eyes and their personal artistic expression.
“and I think it is, there's always, I feel like some sort of tether to romance in a lot of my music.”
The Writing Process Behind Hazel Eyes
17:41 to 19:39
Sam Smith shares insights on their creative process and the production techniques used in their music.
“In terms of the writing process, I have a question, but I want to play a clip or two clips from No God from your last album.”
Transitioning to New Musical Styles
19:39 to 21:46
Sam Smith reveals their new electro-pop project and the inspiration behind it, contrasting it with Hazel Eyes.
“sing things I hear, and then musicians would take that and interpret that or copy it.”
Show all 13 chapters
Unholy: A Turning Point in Sam's Career
21:46 to 24:47
Sam discusses the impact of their hit song Unholy on their artistic freedom and public perception.
“And so I think that Unholy challenged that and was just, you know, a huge moment that kind of popped that bubble in my life, which I was, and I was just so desperate to pop that bubble for so long.”
Evolving Voice and Artistic Exploration
24:47 to 27:08
Sam reflects on how their voice has changed over the years and the ongoing evolution of their sound.
“You know, I on and off smoked a little bit in my 20s.”
Personal Life and Engagement
27:08 to 27:47
Sam briefly touches on their engagement and the personal significance of this milestone.
“Oh, so that's been sitting on your hard drive for years.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Christian Cowan:The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Dell. Back to school starts now. Get long-lasting battery life on the Dell XPS laptop powered by Series 3 Intel Core so you can work from anywhere. Now starting at$6.99 with exclusive student pricing starting at$5.99. Complete your setup with savings on select monitors and must-have electronics and accessories. Limited-time deals and free shipping on PCs and more await you at dell.com slash deals. That's dell.com slash deals.
0:32Christian Cowan:The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Sam Smith burst very big onto the music scene in 2014 with a debut album called In the Lonely Hour. It was one of the best-selling albums of the decade, and it won Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year for Stay With Me.
1:00Sam Smith:Stay with me
1:05Christian Cowan:Sam Smith's early hits were ballads of heartbreak and unrequited love. And so their new album marks something of a change. It's an album of love songs, in this case, very much requited.
1:17Sam Smith:And like all good things, it caught me by surprise
1:25Christian Cowan:The album is called Hazel Eyes, And Sam Smith sat down with our producer, Jeffrey Masters. So take me back. I know that you grew up singing around the house and with your parents. But what was like the moment when you realized that it wasn't just your parents like being nice, that you actually had a good voice?
1:44Sam Smith:I think that I went to this holiday camp called Haven Holidays in the UK. and it's like affordable holidays where you go and stay in caravans in like a caravan park. And I went with my friend Beth. My best friend Beth, I came out to her when I was 10. But she was also the person who kind of forced me to sing because she was a singer herself. She loved singing. And there was a talent show for children at this holiday camp.
2:16Christian Cowan:And how old were you?
2:17Sam Smith:Me and her must have been like 9 or 10. Okay. And she was singing And if you won the talent competition, you won loads of tokens so you can go get loads of sweets from the store, like free sweets and toys. And me and her stood up together and we sang Heroes by Mariah Carey. And I just remember being with her and just seeing the whole room kind of erupt afterwards with me and her singing. And then I went in another holiday camp a year later, I went and sang the same song alone. and I won an award for it in this holiday camp and I just started to basically just sing to different rooms, different people and just the response I was getting was crazy.
3:03Christian Cowan:Wow. Yeah, it was a good time but also always stressful for me. Why stressful?
3:10Sam Smith:I've always been freaked out by my voice. It's a freaky thing. It's like I don't feel the same way that people feel when they hear it. And I don't hear, when I hear myself back, I'm very critical. So it's always, you know, I'm very hard on myself as a singer. So when I come on stage and think I've done a bad job and people are like, that was the best you've ever sounded. And I'm like, I'm so confused. But in recordings, though, you recognize how you sound, right? I have now but it took me I first recorded myself when I was 13 and I my first recording ever did was me singing When You Believe by Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and I sang every single part by myself and I went in the booth after recording it and they like comped the vocal and I sat down and I heard myself sing and I burst into tears because I thought it was the worst thing ever and I was like, in my head I sound so much better than that.
4:11Sam Smith:And then what came after that was many, many years of me having this dysphoria with my voice and trying to hear the goodness.
4:19Christian Cowan:I also was wondering, you said that when you were growing up, and particularly in high school, you would wear makeup and dresses and traditionally feminine clothing. And yet, on your first album, when you were first introduced to the public, you were not dressing feminine. Was that something you intentionally toned down?
4:37Sam Smith:No, it wasn't for me an intentional thing. I think now I look back on it, I moved to London when I was 18 years old. And I've spoken on this before, but I had a homophobic attack happen to me when I was 18. And it kind of triggered me to start wearing less makeup when I was walking around the streets and stuff because I used to wear so much. and as I started to wear less makeup I started suddenly people started to notice my singing more when I was trying to sing and then my my manager during that first album kind of came on board and he was encouraging of me uh he went shopping with me some once and like encouraged me to like wear this type of coat or that thing and I like put it on and I would walk into rooms and doors just started to open to me you know the suits I was wearing it was like it was drag for me so I was like really enjoying the wearing something different and not and and not being not having to deal with everyone looking at you you know the negativity that would come with presenting as as femme as a child I think I was enjoying that not happening but I think after my first albums when I kind of I was like oh okay this is like an identity now that uh people think this is me And if I start dressing femme like I used to, that's going to be something that people have to be educated on, you know?
6:07Sam Smith:And my album first album was so massive. That world stage in which I had to make that announcement just got bigger and bigger and bigger.
6:16Christian Cowan:That's so interesting because I know you grew up in a village, I believe it was like less than a thousand people.
6:21Sam Smith:Yes.
6:21Christian Cowan:The stereotype would be that it would be less safe to present feminine in this small village. but more safe in London. But it was not the case for you.
6:32Sam Smith:No, I mean, I was very, looking back on it, I was very brave. And I had an amazing, I have a very strong mother and I have a very emotional, strong, sensitive father. And they really just let me express myself. But there was definitely, you know, people would say things in the village for sure. And I worked in like the village store once And there was crazy experiences in there for me when I was younger. It wasn't easy, but when I came to London, it became dangerous. And that's when I started to kind of, I guess, tone things down a little bit for my safety, was my reasoning.
7:18Christian Cowan:And you were getting subtle signals from the industry about when you were dressing more masculine. But I guess what I'm wondering is, like, do you hear anything explicitly, like, said to you, like, by people?
7:29Sam Smith:Yeah. I mean, as I started to transition forward and, I guess, backwards into wearing things I wore when I was younger and publicly wearing makeup, moving in a more femme way, that's when I started to hear things within the industry and people would say things that was hard. Like what? I, it was basically alluding to things not maybe being attractive because they're feminine. And luckily for me, I ignored that and I pushed forward. And then when I got the opportunity, I told them that that was wrong and encouraged them to educate themselves a little bit, you know.
8:10Christian Cowan:In hindsight, do you think that that early success that you had would have been possible had you been presenting femme?
8:21Sam Smith:I think it would have been possible. I believe in myself and my music and my voice enough to say that I think I would have built, I would have eventually probably been signed and had moments. I don't think it would have been on that scale. I don't, I don't know. It wouldn't have been on that scale. Maybe eventually. I think we're in different times now. And that's something I've had to come to a peace with because it's not like I was hiding. That's the thing that's hard for me is that I find it hard when I see people very falsely say that I came out when I was 21. I did not. I came out when I was 10 and I was a femme gay from a very, very young age and very out and brave from a very young age.
9:21Sam Smith:Not to say it's not brave to not come out, but I just, I don't like that it's become part of my story that I came out when I was 21. And then also I think with the way that things have gone, I don't like this idea that, you know, maybe I was hiding who I truly was. It wasn't that. I was just experimenting in a different outfit during that period. And that outfit suddenly triggered doors to open for me. And I ran through those doors and I have no regrets.
9:51Christian Cowan:You know, going off that, listening to the new album, Hazel Eyes, there are so many references to queerness and to dating men. And it made me think back to your song, Him, from 2017. In 2017. Yeah, oh my God. Yeah, that song came out. The chorus is, It is Him I Love.
10:08Sam Smith:Don't you try and tell me that God doesn't care for us. It is Him I love. It is Him I love. And it was shocking to hear. Yeah, why?
10:25Christian Cowan:Right? And it was a real risk to put that out at that time. Does it still feel like now, almost 10 years later, a risk to put out such explicitly clear music. Yeah, I wrote him as a response to the kind of feedback from In the Lonely Hour
10:43Sam Smith:about the kind of neutrality maybe of some of the pronouns and things like that. I really wanted to write him because I was like, this wasn't like an intentional thing of hiding for me within In the Lonely Hour. And I wrote him to be like, I'm cool saying him. It's all good. And I did. And I love that song. And I love that moment. But you're right. I feel like I couldn't, I feel like on this album I'm singing about a man and saying that more proudly than ever because it's a love that's reciprocated. And in the Lonely Hour, I was in love with a straight guy who was not gay and we didn't hook up.
11:23Sam Smith:It was pure, unrequired love.
11:25Christian Cowan:Yeah, that always goes well.
11:25Sam Smith:You know, and so, yeah, but so it wasn't, it was a queer record for me, the singer in The Lonely Hour, but the actual content was about me being in love with a straight man, you know, it wasn't reciprocated. So I feel like now with Hazel Eyes, I'm singing about a man that loves me. And so there's almost more pride, I guess, in this record than ever before for me in expressing those words.
11:51Christian Cowan:And you've always been very explicit that your songs come from a very personal place. Is it okay to assume that My Guy is about your partner, Christian? Yes, yes, yes. So tell me, what was it like when he heard the song for the first time?
12:05Sam Smith:Well, Christian loves hyperpop and like really heavy metal like pop. Okay.
12:12Christian Cowan:So that's not this song.
12:13Sam Smith:It's not this song. But he loves this song and he finds the beauty in it. And he adores it. He's been so beautiful and encouraging through the whole process of this record. And it's been this balancing act of, you know, how much do you share? Not wanting to share too much, but also, like, it's about him and it's a love letter to him as a record of this time that we're in, you know?
12:37Christian Cowan:At what point in the songwriting process did you play it for him?
12:40Sam Smith:I played, I probably played him that one a few days after I wrote it. Yeah, I show him things all the time. Wow.
12:47Christian Cowan:And you mentioned that a lot of your earlier music was about unrequited love. The Sam Smith was searching for love from other people and from themselves as well. I imagine that's a very fruitful place to write from. So for this new album, was it a challenge to write from a place of like, I'm happy?
13:03Sam Smith:I thought it would be. I really did. I was scared. I was always very scared of falling in love when I was younger. Especially after In the Lonely Hour, you know, doing so well and changing my life in so many ways. I was like, I better stay miserable. But I knew that when it was time and I was truly in love and I could really pull from that place, that I didn't want to be scared of that. I found it a very deepening and enriching thing to pull from as an artist.
13:36Christian Cowan:In this new album, there's new sounds. I haven't heard from you. There's a little bit of country in there. Obviously, there's the big ballads. There's R &B. There's dance. I don't have enough fingers to list all of the genre Sam Smith has sang in. So if anything is possible, how do you describe what a Sam Smith song is or isn't?
Read the full transcript
14:00Sam Smith:I think that to describe a Sam Smith song, I think my music is dramatic. and I think it is, there's always, I feel like some sort of tether to romance in a lot of my music. But I feel like my music is free from those boundaries of genre a little bit. Just like I feel like I'm free from boundaries too as a queer person in the way that I express and dress. My music kind of is no different to my expression of myself. Some days I wear trousers and a jacket, and then some days I'm wearing a beautiful gown. It's the same with the music. For me, with Hazel Eyes, I find it, when people say there's so many genres in it, I'm like, oh God, yeah, there is.
14:52Sam Smith:Because I felt like with Hazel Eyes, for the first time ever, I'm actually containing myself a little bit more. But there is so many genres on the album and so many things. I just let myself be free when it comes to those things, and I love that about myself and my music.
15:07Christian Cowan:The new album Hazel Eyes, it's a big departure from the last four albums. This album, both musically and the content of the songs, is a new chapter. Did you go into it with that goal?
15:20Sam Smith:Yeah. I mean, for me, this album was the biggest challenge as an artist because the way that I'd been making albums up to this point was in a very pop and fabulously commercial way. I don't see a negative to that word for me. I love commercial pop music. But I produced a lot of the record and was hands-on with the making of the record more than ever before. And I wanted to stick to, for me, a cohesive feel that you could put the record on and stay in that world, whatever that world would be. And so I set myself that task, and it was a huge task. It actually took a lot of courage, especially within the industry and the way that people are used to me making music.
16:05Sam Smith:Wait, wait, sorry. I'm a layperson who doesn't understand it. Why did that take courage to do that? Because I'm a pop artist, and the way that I would make music, you could hear the promise in the sound of the music that it could be a possible success. I don't write music for that reason, by the way. Even if it sounds like I do when you listen to my music, that's not my intention. I love pop music but when I'm aiming to write like a pop song you know you want to lean into the catchiness of it so people get used to there being hooks within the song and this album when I was writing it I stayed away from those I think choices sometimes to challenge myself and say let's find a different type of hook maybe a hook that comes two minutes into the song instead of 20 seconds into the song and something that builds to the greatest hook of all time.
16:58Sam Smith:I think my guy builds to the most beautiful hook I've ever written. Had him all the time, time, time
17:11Sam Smith:He's my guy You can't dream it all that you want You can't dream it all that you want So it was just about structuring things differently in a way that pop heads and commercial people within the industry, you know, maybe aren't used to hearing as much. Yeah. And so that I had to do that.
17:41Christian Cowan:Singer and songwriter Sam Smith. More in a moment.
17:53Christian Cowan:In terms of the writing process, I have a question, but I want to play a clip or two clips from No God from your last album. So I want to hear two things, which is that there's the background nose.
18:13Christian Cowan:And then there's also this like vocal distortion. That's so nice. Yeah, this distortion.
18:30Christian Cowan:So, like, in the writing process, are you hearing that in your head and putting that down, or does that all come later?
18:36Sam Smith:That came in, that all comes from me in the studio afterwards, building the world around the lead vocal. so I put down the vocal when we've written the song and then if the song requires it I become my own choir I become my own hype man I become my own sound effect I create sounds and instruments with my voice Give me an example of something I don't know, you can make drum beats through your voice and you can create almost synth pads with your voice if you take it and then the computer changes it. And so, you know, the Hazel Eyes record I just made, I did that a little bit with backing choirs and also singing parts.
19:25Sam Smith:I mean, all over Hazel Eyes, most of the production on it that I do is me singing parts to players and then them recreating it, playing it on another instrument. So that's what I do in the studio is I just vocally sing parts, sing things I hear, and then musicians would take that and interpret that or copy it. And so that was Hazel Eyes, which was more like live people on instruments. But like the record I'm currently making right now, after Hazel Eyes. Wait, wait, wait.
19:56Christian Cowan:Hazel Eyes has not come out yet, but you still have another record you're working on. I'm working on another record. Oh, really?
20:00Sam Smith:Yeah, yeah. I'm just, I'm inspired to do it, and it's more electro and more intense. and that's, you know, I just make all different weird sounds and scream into the microphone and free myself and sometimes those things get turned into wild things you would never imagine.
20:18Christian Cowan:Is the new, new, new record, the electro-pop one, is that drawing from like this current phase of being in love as well?
20:25Sam Smith:It is, but it's maybe more in a more naughty, playful way. Hazel Eyes is like this deep confession, a traditional, a new traditional queer love romance album. That's how I see it. And then I've just, whilst I've been making that, I'm also really hungry to shake my titties and, you know, encapsulate some of the really, the way that I feel in my relationship, where I feel I'm still 34 and I love to dance and I'm free and I'm still inspired by intense hyper-pop electro sounds. And so I'm also doing that too.
21:08Christian Cowan:Wow. I mean, that reminds me of Unholy, which is arguably the biggest song of your career.
21:26Christian Cowan:It went to number one, it won you a Grammy, and you've said that you got a lot of pushback from your team about releasing that what was their reasoning for not releasing it um it wasn't that they didn't want to release it it was that
21:39Sam Smith:they wanted it they didn't want it as the first single and the battle that i i started to get into a battle because i was like you're not hearing what i'm hearing i then started to realize this is just like there's something about the sex in the song and the sexuality in the music and and the also the fun and lightheartedness of it that i think just challenged some people's tastes when it came to me i think that you know unholy broke down what people think of me when they think of sam smith and up until that point you a lot of people thought that my greatest strength was to sing heartbreak ballads.
22:23Sam Smith:And so I think that Unholy challenged that and was just, you know, a huge moment that kind of popped that bubble in my life, which I was, and I was just so desperate to pop that bubble for so long. Unholy really encaptured my playful side and my humor in the music. And I just, you know, I championed that song from the beginning.
22:47Christian Cowan:I mean, I wrongly would have just assumed that you could release anything you wanted.
22:53Sam Smith:I can.
22:54Christian Cowan:Oh, I can release whatever I want.
22:56Sam Smith:But I also, I listen to people around me and what they think sometimes. You know, like I do. It's like, I think in the pop world, I've actually enjoyed that back and forth sometimes with people around me. And sometimes it's actually done really well for me. And, you know, I think labels get a very bad rep a lot of the time. And I understand why they do. There's a lot of issues. But I've worked with some unbelievably talented people, incredibly creative people who really love music and they love pop music. And so, you know, I honor those relationships sometimes and I like to hear what they think.
23:36Sam Smith:And, you know, with Hazel Eyes, I've taken a step back from that a bit more. But it's a time and a place for those things. And yeah.
23:44Christian Cowan:Did the success of Unholy give you permission to make Hazel Eyes, I don't want to say weirder, but to go bigger and further on it?
23:56Sam Smith:It just, Unholy's given me permission just to do what I want now in my life. And it's not that it gave me permission with everyone else because I could have always done what I wanted to do as an artist. I was never trapped in a label situation where I was being forced to do anything I wasn't allowed to do. But it gave me seeing people's reaction to that song and them feeling me and my energy through that music. I was like that. You get me. I feel like I can express all shades and colors of myself now with no kind of fear.
24:33Christian Cowan:You mentioned you're 34. How has your voice changed as you've gotten older?
24:38Sam Smith:Oh, my God, loads. I mean, it's lower than, I can sing lower than ever before. My higher register is, I still sing in the heights, but it's a different tone. It's kind of a fuller sound. In my 20s, I had fun. You know, I on and off smoked a little bit in my 20s. Never like full-time smoker, but I on and off smoked. I don't know if that had too much of an impact. I think the biggest impact on my voice and the changes have been the workload of singing. I think that I have sacrificed notes in my register from the amount of work and travel and touring and singing that I've done in my life. Yeah, I mean, I've done, I can't, countless, probably near to a thousand shows.
25:23Sam Smith:And I sing full out the whole time for two hours, you know, projecting to an audience. It takes a toll on your instrument after a while.
25:33Christian Cowan:I was curious because in the final track, To Be Free, you open that track singing,
25:40Sam Smith:Pray your heart be lighter, brave and free like mine.
25:46Christian Cowan:Pray your heart be lighter, brave and free like mine. And the quality of your voice, it isn't something I'd heard before.
26:06Sam Smith:Yeah, it's a different, that was a different shape. I was kind of like the sound E, like that. I put my mouth into like a shape like that when I was singing. And then I realized that if I just stay there and sing the verse, this completely different timbre came out. So you're still learning new things your voice can do. Yeah, my voice is going to change forever. However, I like now that I sound completely different in some songs to other songs. I wish and hope for people to see that as part of the Sam Smith music, is that you don't never know necessarily what you're going to get.
26:42Christian Cowan:And technically, the beginning of To Be Free, is that you mixing your head and chest voice? Is that falsetto?
26:48Sam Smith:What is that? I think it's like a bit of falsetto with chest kind of mixed together.
26:55Christian Cowan:Okay.
26:55Sam Smith:It's also just the position of the day. Like when I sing that song now, that recording, by the way, I sang that before I wrote Unholy.
27:04Christian Cowan:Whoa.
27:05Sam Smith:Which is wild.
27:06Christian Cowan:Whoa.
27:07Sam Smith:Yeah.
27:08Christian Cowan:Oh, so that's been sitting on your hard drive for years.
27:10Sam Smith:I wrote that the week I changed my pronouns. I wrote To Be Free. And so that song kind of stuck with me. And I was like, I'm going to return to this feeling, and I'm going to make a whole album in this world. And I did.
27:24Christian Cowan:We mentioned earlier in the conversation that my guy has written about your partner, Christian Cowan. He's a fashion designer. It was reported recently that you're engaged. Congratulations.
27:34Sam Smith:Thank you.
27:35Christian Cowan:Can I ask who proposed to who?
27:37Sam Smith:Oh, they are secrets I will never tell. Not even in the music, I would never say. It's just too special.
27:47Christian Cowan:Thank you for the great conversation.
27:49Sam Smith:Thank you.
27:54Christian Cowan:Their album Hazel Eyes comes out later this month, and Jeffrey Masters is a producer at the New Yorker Radio Hour. That's our program for this week. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer. With guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Decket.
28:35Christian Cowan:The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.
28:46Christian Cowan:Wired has always put a microscope on the people, power, and forces shaping our world. Uncanny Valley brings that same fearless reporting straight to your feed. Is Doge finally over? Will AI actually democratize American health care? Each week, Wired journalists from across the newsroom are going to unpack where politics, technology, and Silicon Valley collide. From conversations with tech leaders across Silicon Valley, internet fandom investigations, and government crackdowns on rigged gambling, We're taking you all over the news cycle, going straight inside the priorities, pressures and power plays driving today's biggest decisions.
29:24Christian Cowan:Uncanny Valley tackles the questions keeping you up at night and helps make sense of the future taking shape right now. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.
From the publisher
Sam Smith burst onto the music scene in 2014 with their début album, “In the Lonely Hour.” It was one of the best-selling albums of the decade and won Smith three Grammys, for Best Pop Vocal Album and both Record and Song of the Year, for the massive hit “Stay With Me.” Smith’s early hits were ballads of heartbreak and unrequited love, so their new album marks something of a change: it’s an album of love songs, requited in this case. Many were written about Smith’s fiancé, the fashion designer Christian Cowan. Smith talked about the writing process that led to their new album “Hazel Eyes,” which comes out August 21st, with New Yorker Radio Hour producer Jeffrey Masters.
Further reading:
- “Sam Smith’s Sugary Loneliness and the Choir Effect,” by Doreen St. Félix
- “Getting the James Bond Song Right,” by Ian Crouch
New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
