Samuel Frederick Smith is an English singer and songwriter. In 2012, they rose to prominence when they featured on electronic music duo Disclosure's breakthrough single "Latch", which peaked at No. 11 on the UK singles chart.
The following year, they featured on record producer Naughty Boy's single "La La La", which became a number one single in the UK.
real name: Samuel Frederick Smith
labels: Capitol Records
genres: soul, contemporary R&B, pop music, rhythm and blues
influenced by: Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, Adele, Sia
awards: Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Grammy Award for Song of the Year, Grammy Award for Best New Artist, Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album, Academy Award for Best Original Song, BET Award for Best New Artist, MOBO Awards, Out100
plays: voice
Facts from Wikidata and Discogs, free to use.
Samuel Frederick Smith was born in London on 19 May 1992 to Frederick Smith and broker Kate Cassidy. Smith grew up in the village of Great Chishill in Cambridgeshire, where they attended Thomas More Primary School. They are the third cousin of the singer-songwriter and actress Lily Allen.
A VH1 profile of Smith's vocal coach Joanna Eden noted that Smith's vocal range "can soar from baritone to tenor for dramatic effect". Smith places a lot of emphasis on their voice and stated they tried to make it the main element of their debut studio album In the Lonely Hour. Following the release of the album, their vocals were often compared to those of Adele. Jessica Robertson of The Fader considers that Smith represents "a return of the virtuosic vocalist in popular music", in the vein of Whitney Houston and Luther Vandross. Jim Farber wrote for the New York Daily News that Smith is "utterly unafraid to sound feminine"; Mary J. Blige thought that Smith was a black woman when she first heard them sing on Disclosure's "Latch". Asked...
"Unholy" is a song by the English singer Sam Smith and the German singer Kim Petras. It was released on 22 September 2022 through EMI Records and Capitol Records as the second single from Smith's fourth studio album Gloria (2023) and later added as a bonus track on Petras' debut studio album Feed the Beast (2023).
It was teased by Smith on their TikTok account a month before its release and went viral due to its use in thirst trap-style videos. Produced by Ilya, Omer Fedi, Blake Slatkin, Jimmy Napes, and Cirkut and written by them alongside Smith and Petras, "Unholy" is a sexually charged electropop, dance-pop, and synth-pop song with choral and hyperpop influences.
Prior to the release of "Unholy", British singer Sam Smith earned global recognition for ballads released throughout the 2010s as well as occasional features on songs by EDM producers, including on Naughty Boy's 2013 song "La La La" and on Disclosure's 2012 song "Latch". Kim Petras, a transgender German singer-songwriter, had been releasing pop and dance music, such as her 2017 single "I Don't Want It at All", since she independently released her debut single as a teenager.
A sexually charged and campy electropop, synth-pop, and dance-pop song, "Unholy" marked a return to EDM and a shift from sentimental ballads to dance music for Smith. It is in the key of F♯ minor (in the C♯ Phrygian dominant mode), giving a sense of Indian and Arabic music. It features Gregorian choir-like vocals, a "grinding" bassline, a string section, and metallic hyperpop-style synths and percussion popularized by British producer Sophie and the record label PC Music.
For The New York Times, Lindsey Zoladz wrote that "Unholy" "sounds like the most fun [Smith has] ever had on a song". In a review of Gloria, Helen Brown of The Independent called "Unholy" the "stand-out banger" of the album, while Elly Watson of DIY picked it as an "undoubted standout" from the album, where, according to her, its "catchy melodies" were "elsewhere untouchable". The Sydney Morning Herald's Annabel Ross called it "promising" compared to other "inoffensive" songs on the album. For Variety, Jem Aswad wrote that "Unholy" was "one of the most musically innovative and unusual songs in years" to top the Billboard Hot 100. It was praised as an "inescapably catchy" "masterpiece of oversexualised nonsense" that "leaves everything else...
The music video for "Unholy" was released on 30 September 2022. Inspired by A Clockwork Orange and Bob Fosse, it was directed by Floria Sigismondi and choreographed by the French dance collective (La)Horde. The video opens on a man, played by Henry Davis, opening a car door for his wife (Maren Fidje Bjørneseth), who exits and is given a coat by the man after she starts shivering. The two part ways as she enters a strange building and looks at a condom-themed invitation to a club called the Body Shop. Her husband enters the club, which is disguised as an auto shop but is actually a sex club and cabaret for which Smith, who wears a leather harness and is accompanied by androgynous burlesque dancers, is the MC. Drag queens Violet Chachki and...