Sam Smith is in New York — relaxed, chatty, showing me various tattoos. An early one etched on an arm eight years ago simply says “Alone”. The singer, who uses they/them pronouns, dismisses it with a flourish. “It’s awful. I’m a drama queen.” Smith, who has just turned 30, seems newly confident in a way that never used to be the case.
The singer was thrust into the limelight when young, selling 12 million copies of the debut album In the Lonely Hour in 2014. For years no taxi was safe from the lush, pained falsetto of Smith’s breakthrough ballad Stay with Me or the James Bond song Writing’s on the Wall, which won an Oscar.
It was in 2017 when Smith declared: “I feel just as much a woman as I am a man.” Two years later the singer came out as nonbinary and announced the change of pronouns. “These words,” Smith says of the pronouns, “had such a positive impact. I feel safer. People get me more.”
Smith’s popularity is remarkable — 30 million more monthly listeners on Spotify than Adele — and the recent, riotous single Unholy feels like a statement. As does the new album, Gloria, which blends house, gospel and a blast of choral to create music of release, with lyrics steeped in “queer history”. Unholy earned Smith a Grammy nomination for the first time since that debut and is also up for best song at the Brit awards.
Ah, the Brits. The one step forwards, two steps back awards show. Smith will have to wait until next year’s ceremony to score a nod for best artist with Gloria — the first time the singer will be eligible for the gender-neutral prizes introduced last year, merging the best female and best male into an overall best artist category.
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Yet the 2023 awards ceremony being held next month is already a nightmare. No women are up for best artist. Indeed, just 42 per cent of the nominations are for female artists. What’s this got to do with Smith? In 2021 the star called for the awards to be “reflective” and so became the figurehead for a landmark change, the Brits becoming the first big UK awards to become gender neutral. (Others argue that would have happened anyway, given that the US Grammys went gender neutral in 2012.)
Women warned at the time that the change risked marginalising female artists. And so it has come to pass. Before the award went gender neutral, five women used to enjoy the spotlight in the annual race to become best female artist. This year the spotlight is basically on Harry Styles, Stormzy and George Ezra, without a woman in view.
“It is a shame,” Smith agrees. The singer looks genuinely bewildered that women have been forgotten, despite the bear trap the Brit jurors have walked into being so obvious. “Things are moving forward, but it’s obvious it’s not there yet. From seeing that [best artist] list, there is still a long way to go.”
Smith nods when I suggest that a fix might be to have ten best artist nominees, but the problem is the Brits have long been terrible to women. Little Mix were the first female winners of best group — in 2021.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” Smith says with a sigh. “It feels like it should be easy to do. [The Brits] just have to celebrate everyone because this is not just about artists getting awards. Awards are for kids watching on TV, thinking, ‘I can make music like this.’ When I was young, if I’d seen more queer people at these awards it would have lit my heart. Awards are there to inspire.”
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Which women should be on the list? “Cat Burns. Anne Marie. Florence Welch. There’s so much incredible female talent in the UK — they should be on that list.”
On to Gloria — the record Smith says is the most authentic the singer has done, which, I say, suggests that there was an inauthentic time.
“I’ve always been authentic,” comes the terse reply. “I just think asking a 24-year-old to be their 100 per cent self in front of 20,000 people was never going to happen. I showed 70 per cent of who I was then and a lot of that has to do with me being gay. As I got older, though, I realised there’s no shame. I wasn’t being inauthentic — you just keep some things to yourself until you’re ready.”
Smith has changed. In 2014, when fame called, the singer’s image was inspired by Frank Sinatra — all suits and Rat Pack quiffs and riffs. It suited the torch songs, but there was something darker afoot. Born in London, Smith went to school in the home counties and came out to family as gay aged ten. Smith wore female clothes as a teenager until, after moving back to London, being punched in a homophobic attack. Hence less flamboyance, more suits. “I felt protected. That was the only way I was comfortable.”
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Today, though, check the singer’s Instagram and it is all fishnet tops, bare legs and skirts. One photo has the singer in a skimpy sequin jumpsuit looking self-confident again. Smith has become a student of queer history — “We’ve gone through a lot of pain” — and the album is about the lessons of that experience. Gloria features audio from a news anchor at the first Pride march in New York in 1970 saying that “the saddest part about being a homosexual is having to lie”.
A few weeks ago Smith mentioned homophobia in music. That jolted because it is an industry that pats itself on the back for being liberal and wonderfully diverse. I ask Smith to expand.
“It’s the arts, right?” Smith says, mischievously. “An expressive industry! But if you write down all the big queer pop artists from the last 30 years, you will realise there are not many. There are a lot of incredible queer artists who have not been supported and that comes down to people’s politics when they listen to music. I’ve listened to the straight perspective for my whole life, so I do believe that music is a universal language and that queer music isn’t just for queer people.”
When the gay rom-com Bros bombed at the box office last year, its star Billy Eichner said it was because straight couples did not want to see a gay love story. Is there a similar issue in pop? “Totally,” Smith says with a nod. “And it’s getting better — the more that people see that type of love with their friends or family members, the more they will enjoy films and music by queer people. But it is also about education. We need to educate everyone on what it is to be queer.”
It is worth noting that when the straight pop star Harry Styles recently wore a lavish sparkly jumpsuit it won shrieks of delight, but when Smith did the abuse flowed. The singer laughs. “All I can say is that I looked fabulous.”
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At the start of Smith’s career the singer, who had weight issues at school, spoke of dreading being in a business where a toned star such as Justin Bieber was the norm. During childhood the star’s parents had to persuade Sam to undress at the pool. “Sam, look at everyone around you, all the shapes and sizes! Take it off, we’re on holiday!” But Sam could not. It was a crippling fear.
Now, though, on Instagram Smith is showing the flesh and even goes topless on the front of Gloria. What changed? “Within my industry there is definitely that question of, ‘What should a pop star look like?’ When I was 25 I came off tour exhausted. I looked to role models in the body world. Every time I went to the pool I felt self-conscious, but I forced myself to take my top off. It paid off because I now have the opposite of body dysmorphia. I look fabulous. I’m finally getting a tan. I’m burnt in places I’ve never been burnt.”
Quite clearly little fazes Smith now. “I get closer to who I am with each album,” the singer says. “But I never want to get there.” Thoughtful and well-meaning, Smith is aware of having become an unwitting focal point for issues “so big everyone has an opinion” on them. Smith isn’t the only nonbinary person, but just happens to be the most famous and everything is a potential flashpoint — just saying Gloria was inspired by the “feminine spirit in me” could trigger a social media pile-on.
Smith, though, seems happier as a thirtysomething. “Writing sad songs used to be easy, while leaning into joy was tough. I’m happier in my own skin on Gloria. I feel liberated, released from pressures I felt when I was young.”
What changed? Smith smiles. “My mum says that, as I’ve got older, I’ve stopped caring what people think as much. She tends to be right.”
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Gloria is released by EMI on Jan 26
