The success of Smith remains a mystery to me. Outside of the live track featuring Disclosure, the best thing that you can say about the additions to the record is that they at least didn’t include arguably the least impactful James Bond theme tune of all time. A duet with Mary J Blige doesn’t improve 'Stay With Me' whatsoever and similar collaborations don’t serve to make any headway. The rest of the album falls into that same category. Unfortunately, it’s probably this track that I think of as representing Smith best.
It’s a song stripped of everything that made it palatable and the sort of thing you’d expect to be played as John Lewis make their annual attempt to shill toasters. The problem is that the strength of this only serves to shine a light on the weakness of the acoustic version of 'Latch' that made the record first time around. Another strong moment comes in the form of the live version of 'Latch' from Madison Square Garden: when Smith stops halfway the track to say he can’t do this track without Disclosure, it’s the high point of the record. Its slow burn build is one of those moments that makes you question whether you’re just being the cynical music writer. Later, 'Like I Can' is his strongest song from the original release. Maybe we shouldn’t expect sincerity from our pop acts and I’m approaching this from completely the wrong angle if I’m to get anything from it. Neither of these things are necessarily Sam Smith’s fault, but that doesn’t stop it from rendering the song to be basically null. Similarly, these special edition releases are about as much a cash cow as you can possibly conceive. You can’t feasibly claim to not have money on your mind when you’ve been fast-tracked to success by the wealth of those around you. Still, hearing a track like 'Money on my Mind' will still bug me more than it has any right to. As a pop performer, that’s probably not the damning verdict that it might be for a guitar band with eyes on headlining festivals. Smith is an artist who is more tolerable on record than he is in the live arena. Listening to a Sam Smith record in full, which I did for the first time for the purposes of this review, eliminates some of what I found so worthy of scorn from the equation. My problem was primarily with what I deemed to be false sincerity and emotion. Over the summer, I provoked the ire of some with a scathing review of Smith’s festival shows at both Nos Alive and V Festival. Now, with this Drowning Shadows version of that record, he’s getting the re-release treatment. There’s a track on this new repackaging that’s live from Madison Square Garden, which is just a taste of what he and those around him have achieved. His debut album, In The Lonely Hour, rocketed him into the position of a genuine global superstar.
SAM SMITH IN THE LONELY HOUR DROWNING SHADOWS EDITION ZIP FULL
See the full In The Lonely Hour: The Drowning Shadows Edition tracklisting below:Ġ6 Latch feat.You can’t deny the ridiculous success of Sam Smith. The Official Singles Chart Top 100 will be revealed here at 5.45pm. Smith could also be set to s core the first Bond theme Official Singles Chart Number 1 today with The Writing’s On The Wall. MORE: The Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Artist Albums of 2015 so far The album has had a record-breaking 12 months, becoming the only release to sell over a million copies in the UK and US, logging almost an entire unbroken year in the Top 5 (a feat only previously managed for a debut by The Beatles), and marking the first album by a male solo artist to achieve six different spells at Number 1. MORE: The Official Top 40 Biggest Songs of 2015 so farĮarlier this week, the Official Charts Company confirmed that In The Lonely Hour is currently the second-biggest artist album of the year so far. Smith and produced by Jimmy Napes and Steve Fitzmaurice. The two-disc release will also include covers of Amy Winehouse’s Love Is A Losing Game and Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know? as well as exclusive new track Drowning Shadows – co-written by Smith and Fraser T. In The Lonely Hour: The Drowning Shadows Edition is set for UK release on November 6 and features collaborations with Mary J Blige, ASAP Rocky and John Legend. Sam Smith will release an extended version of his debut album In The Lonely Hour.
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