“It feels like emotional, sexual and spiritual liberation,” declares the most confident and creatively fulfilled version of Sam Smith the world has yet encountered. “It feels like I’ve got my faith back, in my job. So it was beautiful, with this album, to sing freely again, for me. It feels like a coming of age.” Gloria, Sam Smith’s fourth album, is not only a creative revelation but something of a personal revolution for the celebrated virtuoso soul singer/songwriter. Since their No.1 debut album In The Lonely Hour (2014), Smith has amassed a constellation of glittering achievements: 35 million albums
sold, 250 million singles, 45 billion multi-platform streams, four Grammys, three BRITs, six MOBOs, a Golden Globe, one Oscar, two No.1 albums, five No.1 singles, two No.1 singles as featured vocalist on club bangers from Naughty Boy (‘La La La’, 2013) and Calvin Harris (‘Promises’, alongside Jessie Reyez, 2018).
But Gloria is a different kind of achievement, which isn’t playing the numbers game. It’s the dazzling, sumptuous, sophisticated, unexpected and at times thrillingly edgy sound of Sam Smith’s creative heart today. The sound of constricting shackles crashing to the floor, of boundaries joyfully breached, of a still-searching talent discovering what it means to be truly free. It’s the sound of now, a diverse, multi-genre mosaic album featuring a trio of female voices from across the globe: Colombian/Canadian r&b-pop maverick Jessie Reyez, German/American transgender kitsch-pop icon Kim Petras and breakout Jamaican reggae/rap star Koffee.
“There’s a huge female influence on Gloria,” says Smith. “I made sure the rooms I was in had that balance. Which was wonderful. Because it’s been very male heavy in my career in terms of co-writers and producers.” These three women, alongside production work from long-term collaborators Jimmy Napes, Stargate and Max Martin stablemate ILYA, conspired to set Smith free, Gloria boldly and yet seamlessly weaving between glitterball electro pop, glorious melodic reverie, Jamaican dancehall freak-pop, exquisite piano balladry and an actual choir-sung hymn. “I wanted a beautiful patchwork of genres and sounds. That’s who I am.”
Lyrically, the subjects also dive deep and wide, into contemporary narratives around sex, lies, passion, self-expression, imperfection and toxic masculinity. The Voice, meanwhile, is more profoundly moving than ever, achingly melancholy, soaringly crystalline, a vocal gift Beyoncé likens to “butter”. Today, Smith is no longer the Patron Saint of Sadness, whose first three gorgeously plaintive albums In The Lonely Hour (2014), The Thrill Of It All (2017) and Love Goes (2020), were mostly defined by lyrical open-heart surgery. This time, Smith began with a self-appointed challenge. “I was not gonna write a heartbreak album,” they announce. “A challenge that was huge! I wanted this to be the opposite. When I was a kid, just walking out of the house, I needed armour. Rihanna, Robyn, Beyoncé, they were my armour. And I feel like Gloria is the album I needed that I never had.”
