Released May 26, 2014
4 / 10
Favorites
I'm Not The Only One
Least favorites
Money On My Mind, Like I Can, Life Support
Sam Smith's 2014 debut "In The Lonely Hour" came after he was propelled at the top of the charts for his work with Disclosure and Naughty Boy on "Latch" and "La La La". His outstanding vocals already stood out - and won him Pop Vocal Album of the Year at the 57th Grammy's - but the public knew little of his songwriting. And they weren't missing much. Coming from a deeply personal place, Sam Smith described his album as the "diary from a lonely 21-year-old", perhaps too literally. Indeed lyrical content could have done with a little more depth and creative flair. If anything, the album might be worth a - quick - detour for Sam's vocal delivery. "In The Lonely Hour" really is a monotonous experience, unveiling little surprise three tracks in and beyond, working with a pop brand that layers vocals and calls forth sporadic horns and strings to wear the more worldly soul badge. "In The Lonely Hour" is at its heart a testimony to the power and pain of unrequited love. Its lyrics and ambiance are rooted in Sam's loneliness in a crown of passing or impossible matches. After an introductory track - Money On My Mind - where we learn that Sam is proud of not being a sell-out and made the album out of love before anything else, the loneliness odyssey begins with Good Thing, a track dedicated to a relationship headed for failure past its honeymoon phase. Sam navigates relationships, platonic and romantic alike, struggling to find a place to call home. He finds himself bogged in a relationship with an unfaithful partner he has a hard time leaving (I'm Not The Only One - the first song in which we hear a bit of grit in his voice and with it a bit of a fighting spirit), he finally curses out a lover that doesn't give him the time of in I've Told You Now - the song with some of the weirdest intonation choices, as if Sam couldn't settle on just one way to approach the subject matter - and he laments about a close friend who couldn't possible reciprocate his feelings in Not In That Way, an acoustic piercing ballad which holds some of the most poignant lyrics ("I hate to say I want you when you make it so clear you don't want me"). And those are pretty much most of what "In The Lonely Hour" has to say. Not much has been said of the arrangements and melodies so far mainly because the album's musical excursions are sparse. "In The Lonely Hour" plays it very - very - safe indeed. For instance, Like I Can feels tuned for radio plays. It fails to create a sound that enhances its heart-wrenching topic, instead relying on an arrangement that starts off exactly like "Rolling In The Deep" and goes into a commercial jingle for unrequited love. Money On My Mind borrows from the Brit pop successes of the time, with a sound close to something that Rudimental would have put out - notice the drum'n'bass. Its chorus is excruciating; Sam's falsetto, while impressive, sounds like a screeching alarm here. Tracks are often set up to leave Sam's vocals take center stage. Stay With Me pushes this to an extreme with choir-like background vocals that are actually Sam's own recorded and layered harmonies. The song was a spectacular commercial success despite trying way too hard to be dramatic for it to be truly effective. It's cheesy but decent. Again, not much risk-taking here, and it resembles Emeli Sandé's "Next To Me" a bit much to pretend deserving any creative accolades. I will mention a track that stands out as actually not sounding as commonplace as the rest of the album. That track is Life Support. It's dissonant but not intriguing, featuring an ill-fitting electronica beat on the chorus with too heavy a use of voice effects; overall sounding more like a demo for part of a completely different project. Sam clearly shows an impressive vocal flexibility; moving through parts of his vocal register with very little friction, knowing when to hold back. Apart from that, "In The Lonely Hour" lacks flair, audacity and adventurousness; showing that you don't need any of that to launch a career and please crowds worldwide.
Favorite lyrics
"It's like waiting for a friend Watching everybody else meet theirs on that corner Or losing in an argument Though you're right, can't get your thoughts in order"
I've Told You Now
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