So things have changed, at least a little, but there’s still something underwhelming about Gloria: the feeling that it’s more of the same is more prevalent than it should be.
Similarly, while Smith is still wont to depict themselves as the helpless victim of romantic disaster – “how did you give up on us like that?” they cry on Lose You – the lyrics occasionally take a more upbeat turn: there are self-affirmations on Love Me More, as well as a sprinkling of songs in which sex is depicted as enjoyable, rather than merely the prelude to months of tearful misery. Nevertheless, you can detect a shift away from the piano-led sound with which Smith made their name: there’s a hint of the 80s R&B slow jam about No God and Six Shots.
They’re sonic outliers on Gloria, given that there’s plenty of stuff here that could have easily slotted on to Smith’s previous three albums: the ballads How to Cry and Perfect the concluding collaboration with Ed Sheeran, Who We Love, which sounds exactly like you’d expect. The story of a straight married father secretly “getting hot” at a gay club called the Body Shop, it featured a dramatic choral hook and a stark electronic sound – as did its minimal, dancehall-influenced follow-up Gimme. Still, the chart-topping collaboration with Kim Petras that preceded Gloria’s release represented a departure for Smith and a historical milestone for Petras – Unholy was the first time a trans or non-binary artist had topped the Billboard Hot 100 – even if its sound wasn’t particularly novel you can detect trap, the gothic atmospherics of Billie Eilish circa 2019 and Sophie’s hyperpop production style in its DNA. The sense that Smith might not be the best judge of their own work, at least when it comes to its ability to spring surprises, thus took shape. As it turned out, it was about as experimental as a packet of digestive biscuits, unless said experiment involved amping up the singer’s trademark romantic misery even further than before. Smith couched Gloria’s predecessor in similar terms: their third album Love Goes was supposedly “experimental”, and “allowed me to be whoever I wanted to be in the studio that day” etc.
But when that artist is Sam Smith – who has said just that about their fourth album, Gloria, bolstered by a press release talking up the album’s “edgy, experimental” nature – it’s worth remembering that we’ve been here before. It comes with the implicit suggestion that the music that made them famous wasn’t quite the ticket, and the sense that the fans who loved said music might be in for a shock. A mainstream artist making noises about their forthcoming release being “the album I always wanted to make” is the kind of thing that makes record companies nervous.
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