Sam Smith

Today I went where music lives.

Downstairs they were rehearsing.

Upstairs I was listening to Sam Smith.

In the studio my buds Luke, Frampton and Don Was, supported by Kenny Aronoff, Greg Phillinganes and a compliment of keyboardists and backup singers, were preparing for Ringo. Who entered at the appointed time, skinny and short-haired and it may be fifty years on, but he's still a BEATLE!

They were doing "Photograph." It sounded every bit as good as the record.

And upstairs I was reminded of the power of music, why it keeps drawing me back, like "Godfather III," why you read this godforsaken newsletter. I heard Sam Smith's debut album. Ten tracks, only one longer than four minutes, four not even breaking three, it's everything America is not.

You know America. A desperate land where it's everybody for himself, where the pop artists tell us how much better and more fabulous than us they are and we're peppered with inane ditties imploring us to get up our gumption and do...what?

The human condition is on life support here. We live in a land where money is king and most people don't have it. And when you're in these straits, the only thing that soothes the soul is music.

You remember music, right?

Stuff like "Tumbleweed Connection," which had no hits but sounds every bit as good today as it did in 1971. And today, just like back then, the best music still comes from England. Where there never was an American Dream and it's less about getting ahead and more about evidencing who you truly are.

In England they follow the pop charts the way we follow the antics of Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. Everybody knows the hit acts, and everybody's got an opinion. And they're all clueless as to what's going on over here, across the pond.

They think it's democratic, kind of like Radio 1, wherein the best of the best is all spun in one place.

But the truth is Top Forty isn't broad at all. And has recently expanded beyond its urban boundaries, but is still looking for instant, not Sam Smith.

But the people?

Sam Smith is exactly what we're looking for.

He looks like us! Everybody singing in America is beautiful, whether by birth or plastic surgery.

Whereas music was never about the image, but the sound, it's what goes in your ears that counts.

Imagine if Susan Boyle was three-dimensional, that she knew how to write as well as sing.

Now you're getting the idea of Sam Smith.

Oh, he's had a bit of success. With Disclosure and Naughty Boy.

But nobody but a hipster knows this in America.

But hipsters are gonna spread the word on Sam Smith's album "In The Lonely Hour," because the peaks are so damn high!

There's no "Rolling In The Deep," but the album has even more soul than "21."

Start with "Leave Your Lover."

Where Sam breathlessly implores his love to leave him for...me. If you haven't felt this emotion, you've lost your genitalia. This is music! Evidencing the human condition, the pain.

You can do nothing but stare at the speakers. You want to jump in, bond with this joyous noise, you want to leave your life, leave it for Sam Smith.

And then there's "Stay With Me." Which builds to a chorus so powerful that if Sam Smith appeared on Sunday night's Grammy show he'd become a star overnight. Because we all want that gospel feeling, we wall want to believe, in the power of the individual, of the voice.

So, the album is not coming out for months.

They're gonna dribble out some tracks.

But I'm telling you now, Sam Smith is America's 2014 breakout star. He's the one everybody's gonna be talking about. Because he's bringing us back to where we once belonged, and have been longing to return to seemingly forever.

Rebirth is inevitable. It's begun in the U.K. Eventually it will spread to the U.S. Because some people just can't play the bankrupt formula game.

Thank god.

"Stay With Me": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxSZMvcle5s

This is live from the Mercury Lounge. It doesn't quite have the power of the recorded track, but you can see and hear the magic. You know when someone has the talent. Put this chorus in a TV show, a hit movie and everybody will know it.

"Leave Your Lover": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhxTLIFXfW8

This is another audience video. Once again, it contains the essence, but the recorded track has an additional layer of magic. You're gonna want to be in attendance the next time he sings this stuff live.


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