And the Love Goes era is a snapshot of the new, freer Smith as a person and pop star. “For now I just want to be VISIBLE and open.” They have since experienced requited love and the pain of its dissolution in their personal life. “I hope you can see me like I see myself now,” they wrote. In September of last year, Smith came out as nonbinary and genderqueer on Instagram, explaining that they now use “they”/“them” pronouns. At the time, they were still going by “he”/“him” pronouns, and in a cover profile, Rolling Stone described them “as the lonely boy inside the big voice.” (A big New York Times profile similarly played up the sensitivity.) Then they came out as gay in 2014 and explained that some of the sadness in their music was about their unrequited love for men.
Their first childhood icon was Frank Sinatra, and Smith became a star in a throwback, Sinatra-ish style, complete with ’50s pompadour, that made them confusingly interchangeable with Michael Bublé. Smith’s melancholically modulating voice became a distinctive force in pop music thanks to massive hits like 20014’s “Stay With Me” and 2017’s “Too Good at Goodbyes.”īut there was, in retrospect, a lack of specificity to the pining love lyrics, and even a diffuse quality to Smith’s image, which was always in the background of Their Voice. Smith has told interviewers that this new record is their first “ proper heartbreak album.” That might seem like a surprising statement from someone who made their name, and accrued a mass pop audience, by singing universally beloved heartbreak ballads. “Can't you see that all I wanna do / Is get a little wild, get a little high / Kiss a hundred boys and not feel like I'm tied to them.”
“They're watching me, judging me, making me feel so used.” Then the sentiment turns remarkably, specifically queer.
In “Young,” the opening song of Love Goes, Sam Smith’s new album, the artist sings about feeling overly scrutinized from an early age.
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