New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Multi-Platinum, GRAMMY, BRIT, Golden
Globe and Oscar winning artist/songwriter
Sam Smith released Gloria, their fourth studio album, via Capitol Records. Smith will perform at the 65th Annual GRAMMY Awards on February 5 and kick off the North American leg of GLORIA The Tour on July 25.
The official video for Smith's new single, "I'm Not Here To Make Friends," was unveiled today. Smith declares, "I'm not here to make friends...I need a lover!" on the bold disco-pop track, which they wrote with Stargate and
Jessie Reyez and recorded with producer
Calvin Harris in Los Angeles.
In the accompanying video, Smith emerges from a helicopter, dressed in the stunning hot pink gown they wore on "Saturday Night Live," and is escorted into a sumptuous costume ball held at a historic English estate. Helmed by Ukrainian director Tanu Muiño (Katy Perry, Normani), the video was shot at Ashridge House, which was once a royal residence to King Henry VIII and Princess
Elizabeth I. La Big Bertha makes a cameo appearance.
Gloria also includes "
Gimme" feat. Koffee and
Jessie Reyez, which Billboard hailed as "a lush, dancehall riff," and the GRAMMY-nominated, RIAA-certified Platinum single "
Unholy" feat. Kim Petras, which spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and four weeks atop the UK Official Singles Chart. Amassing over one billion combined global streams to date, "
Unholy" was hailed as one of the best songs of 2022 by numerous critics.
"
Gloria" is not a nod to a person, past or present, but to that bristling, enigmatic life force, which Smith has christened Gloria. They see it as "my queer love hymn, saying life is a song to Gloria, the thing I can't put a word to. I don't know if it's nature or a feminine energy inside me that I'm setting free."
Smith's fourth album is not only a creative revelation but something of a personal revolution. After three soulful, poignant albums - In The Lonely Hour (2014), The Thrill Of It All (2017) and Love Goes (2020) - that were rewarded with a staggering 37 million albums sold, 276 million singles, 50 billion multi-platform streams and a host of honors that include four GRAMMY Awards, three BRITs, one Oscar and a Golden Globe, Smith embarked on their fourth album with a self-appointed challenge.
"I was not gonna write a heartbreak album," Smith declares. "A challenge that was huge! I wanted this to be the opposite. When I was a kid, just walking out of the house, I needed armor. Rihanna, Robyn, Beyoncé, they were my armor. And I feel like SGloria is the album I needed that I never had."
"Sam Smith's 'Gloria' Is Their Deepest Album Yet," observed Rolling Stone, noting that it "features guests like Kim Petras, Koffee, and Ed Sheeran, but their own personal growth is at the heart of the music." Smith explains, "It feels like emotional, sexual and spiritual liberation. It feels like I've got my faith back, in my work. So it was beautiful, with this album, to sing freely again, for me. It feels like a coming of age."
