Like every other fad-tracking fool, I got the Macklemore haircut this summer. Shaved the sides, left the top long, strutted out from the barber feeling like a progressive pop star, albeit shorter and more modestly dressed.
Within a week, I was regretting my choice and whining nonstop about what seemed to be an unending onslaught of unfriendly comparisons to the “Same Love” MC, my favorite of which was “You look like a young Macklemore, but even gayer.” One friend though, went a different route. “Sam Smith. He looks just like Sam Smith.”
I google imaged the guy, decided the British crooner looked more super villain than GQ model, and proceeded to continue whining. “No, Pat, listen. He’s the best artist ever,” my friend says. Her eyes take on a fanatical shine. Her mouth twitches almost imperceptibly. “EVER, Pat.”
The point of this story is not my stupid haircut. The point of this story is that Sam Smith is, in fact, the best artist ever. EVER.
You discover new musicians every day, usually through stupid stories like this. You think nothing of it. You listen, re-listen, reblog, recommend, and repeat. It's nothing. It's just music. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES. Sam Smith is not a fad. He’s no pet rock. He’s no pop star haircut. When people have moved on from the Miley and the Mack, Sam Smith will still be making bleeding hearts sob with riffs that’ll evacuate your lungs and give you chills so strong they shake your spine.
You’ve probably heard Sam before. His honey-rich voice drips the lyrics to Disclosure’s INCREDIBLE (I could write a whole magazine on this one jam) single, “Latch.” If you haven’t listened to “Latch,” then you should turn yourself into the authorities immediately for crimes against humanity. That VOICE. WHO IS THAT VOICE? Is he white? Is he black? Is this even a man singing? Is this an angel, a little boy, or maybe a choir? How are my ears picking this up? How am I alive? Who is this figure in the night?
It’s Sam. His versatility is astounding, killing it on upbeat tracks like “Latch” and Naughty Boy’s “La La La,” another single featuring Smith’s absurd pipes. “La La La” deserves a spot on your next thirty or so party playlists. The song’s about blocking out the bullshit your ex serves, all those stupid speeches and promises that shouldn’t mean anything but still twist up your guts. Smith, though, doesn’t take any shit. His voice rings with emotion, and though you can hear palpable sadness in his words, his commitment to the music is inspiring enough to make you track down your last lover at Smoke’s, plug your ears, and start screaming “la la la la la…” in their face until they never speak to you again. Listen to the song and it’ll all make sense, I swear.
It’s on Sam’s own tracks, however, that his talent really shines. “La La La” brought him to the top of the UK Singles Chart, and with that success he’s started dropping the singles on his premier EP. The two to check out and subsequently hold close to your heart forever are “Safe With Me” and “Lay Me Down.” “Safe With Me” was the first Sam Smith song I heard post-haircut, before even realizing he was the genius behind “Latch,” and let me just say, it is DOPE.
“Safe With Me” is pop-meets-production, equally at home on mainstream radio and the popular pages of indie music discovering service HypeMachine. It’s so sincere that it’s sexy. “Don’t you know your secret’s safe with me?” he sings, his voice waterfalling down the scale with precision and grace. Yes, Sam, I know. I can tell you anything, Sam. I trust you, Sam. It’s pop because it’s catchier than herpes, it’s soul because it makes you want to grab back that ex from Smoke’s and put them in your bed and give them that very speech you were cursing two paragraphs ago. It’s emotion. It’s raw and it’s real and it rocks.
I close out my rant with “Lay Me Down,” Smith’s best work in my humbly obsessed opinion. The opening bars of the song take conventional rhythm and tear it up, the lyrics uttered like a familiar poem told by the true love you’ve only met in your dreams but you know is definitely super hot. This verse is potentially the best I’ve ever heard (exempting of course Big Sean’s work on “Mercy”). It’s lilting and naively sweet and sets the stage for a chorus that grows with every repetition as Smith reaches out for lost love and almost keens with grief. It’s the typical break-up jam, but it’s told from that place of weakness Britney wouldn’t dare acknowledge. In conventional pop, there’s no room for that place that makes you want them back, that makes you want to care for them and make everything alright– even when you know it’s really, simply, truly done. The song is a self-aware fantasy, sung in the key of desperation. It’s more soulful than Cajun, more jazzy than Kelly Writer’s. He’s begging, and when you’re listening, you are too. There’s somebody out there, someone whose side you need to lay down by, just to make sure they’re all right. You’ll take care of them. You know they need you.
It’s not just Sam. It’s you. It’s your roommate. And it’s me.
I’m keeping my damn haircut.
