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Sam Smith is in a good place. And not just because the sun is beating down in Adelaide, Australia where they stopped briefly for a one-off performance at the d’Arenberg Cube winery, and for some introductions to national media.
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Speaking with Billboard at the EOS by SkyCity hotel, overlooking the iconic Adelaide Oval, Smith appears as chilled as anyone enjoying a break from the grim British winter.
With Gloria, Smith’s fourth album, ready and set for its Jan. 27 release into the world, and a busy year of touring ahead, the British singer could be excused for feeling anxious.
“It doesn’t feel nerve-racking this time around,” Smith explains. “I made a very conscious decision with this record to not bring anything out until I just loved it, in and out, and didn’t want to be in a position where I was putting something out and was thinking, ‘are people going to like this’? I wanted to be in a position where I put something out and I felt I didn’t care if anyone else liked it, because it’s about whether I like it. Because it’s what I make.”
The early results are in, and there’s a lot of love for the new songs. Gloria release “Unholy” featuring Kim Petras is a stone-cold hit, blasting to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Smith’s first U.S. leader; and it logged multiple weeks atop the Official U.K. Singles Chart and Australia’s ARIA Chart.
More than a decade has passed since Smith’s career took flight, when they contributed those honey-dripped, other-worldly vocals to Disclosure’s 2012 breakthrough track “Latch”. A debut LP, In The Lonely Hour, arrived in 2014 and peaked at No. 1 in the U.K., and No. 2 in the U.S. Its followup from 2017, The Thrill of It All hit the summit on both sides of the Atlantic, confirming Smith’s ascent as a bonafide star.
Awards have rained from the heavens, and include four Grammys, three BRITs, an Oscar and a Golden Globe.
Gloria is the follow-up to 2020’s Love Goes, which peaked at No. 2 on the U.K. tally, and No. 5 in the U.S.
Part of the new album was shaped during the pandemic, with production work from longtime collaborators Jimmy Napes, Stargate and Max Martin stablemate ILYA. The collection “really came about expressing the liberation I’ve been feeling over the last few years, when it comes to my sexuality, my emotions, my spirit,” Smith notes.
From the introspective opening number, the previously-released “Love Me More,” the first song Smith wrote for the album, through to the hymnal title track, Gloria is a signal that its creator is “in a good place.”
Fans got a third bite of the LP on Jan. 11, with the release of “Gimme,” featuring Koffee and Jessie Reyez.
With the benefit of multiple listens, and pulling back, there’s a lot of joy to be found in Gloria. One of the album’s belters is “I’m Not Here To Make friends,” a disco-pop number written with Stargate and Jessie Reyez, and produced by Calvin Harris in Los Angeles.
“I’d written so many heartbreak songs and confessional songs that weren’t just about my heartbreak, but other people’s,” Smith recounts. “I wanted to explore a more confident voice and a voice that was stronger, honestly.”
Ahead of the big day, Smith performed on SNL and visited The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for a late-night chat. A major international tour in support of the album will kick off April 12 at the Motorpoint Arena in Sheffield, England, before winding its way across the U.K. and Ireland, Continent Europe, and onto North America for dates in July through October, then return to Australia and New Zealand for a run of shows in the hotter, southern months.
The 2023 version of Smith is wiser, happier, self-assured.
“I really do feel like I’m in that place. Of course I want people to like (Gloria), but I’m on my fourth album now. I don’t feel like I have to prove so much, I just want to enjoy what I make and enjoy my job.”
Albums by Sampa The Great, Julia Jacklin, King Stingray and Tasman Keith are among the finalists for the 18th annual Australian Music Prize, details for which were announced this week.
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Also in the hunt are longplays by 1300, Body Type, Camp Cope, Laura Jean and Party Dozen.
The ultimate winner will be revealed March 1 in Sydney, when the champ will be presented with a A$30,000 ($21,000) bounty, courtesy of major sponsor Soundmerch.
Sales and chart positions have no bearing on the result. It’s the artistry of the entry that counts.
“Yet again we have a very strong list,” comments AMP founder and prize director Scott B. Murphy. “It’s incredibly diverse and truly captures another year of the world’s best music. I sincerely thank the Soundmerch AMP team of judges – their donation of time and passion is much greater than what most people would think.”
Sampa The Great has form with the AMP.
The Zambian-born, Botswana-raised, Melbourne-based hip-hop artist bagged the prestigious prize in 2017 for the mixtape Birds And The BEE9, and again in 2020 with The Return, to become the first and only artist to win the prestigious award twice. Sampa had another world-first in 2020, when she was named as the first-ever BET Amplified global artist.
The AMP is modeled on Britain’s Mercury Music Prize and Canada’s Polaris Prize, the goal of which is to identify and reward the outstanding creative Australian album of the past year.
The nine shortlisted recordings are drawn from a longlist of 490 eligible Australian albums released in 2022, all of which were individually reviewed by a panel of music experts.
This year, the domestic affiliates of EMI, Virgin and Island are on board to sponsor the shortlist by each contributing A$3,000 ($2,100) for a funding pool, which shortlisted artists can drawn on to ensure they can attend the winner announcement event.
Genesis Owusu’s lauded collection Smiling With No Teeth won the prize last time, beating out recordings by Nick Cave, Hiatus Kaiyote and others.
The shortlist of the 18th Soundmerch AMP:1300 – Foreign LanguageBody Type – Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing’s SurprisingCamp Cope – Running With The HurricaneJulia Jacklin – Pre PleasureKing Stingray – King StingrayLaura Jean – AmateursParty Dozen – The Real WorkSampa The Great – As Above, So BelowTasman Keith – A Colour Undone
BRISBANE, Australia — Mushroom Group, the Australian independent music juggernaut, has struck a partnership with Valve Sounds, the reactivated alternative-R&B, hip-hop and soul label.
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Co-founded by Sasha Chifura and Shelley Liu, Valve Sounds is “committed to the growth” of those genres within Australia, and “dedicates to carving a space for these artists to make an impact at an international stage,” reads a statement.
With its resurrection, a string of artist signings and a release slate. The Melbourne-based label relaunches with a roster featuring Sydney R&B multi-hyphenate Maina Doe; Nigeria-born, Melbourne-based producer, vocalist, and performer IJALE; and Brisbane indie/R&B newcomer King Ivy.
To celebrate the return of Valve Sounds, the trio will release a special collaborative number, “WYA” (Where You At), next Thursday (Feb. 2).
Mushroom Group has “been looking for the right hip-hop/R&B partner for some time now to complement our other labels,” notes Mushroom Labels COO Chris Maund.
Valve and its co-founders “stood out because they are entrenched in that scene and have a clear vision to break fresh hip-hop/R&B artists globally. Valve are signing artists whose sound is both authentic and borderless, giving them real opportunity to cut-through and deliver internationally,” he tells Billboard.
Maund points to the success of the recent Maina Doe single “Primal Design.” Mushroom Group serviced the track, which went on to land “a load of global playlists,” he explains. “That, will be the start of many.”
Following its launch in 2015, Valve Sounds released recordings from UV Boi, Nasty Mars, ESESE, Villette and Maya Hirasedo, and earned a reputation for its events and parties in Melbourne, spotlighting international and local artists.
Among the highlights were events at Melbourne Music Week’s 2016 and 2017 flagship venues State Library of Victoria and St Paul’s Cathedral, and its team curated a stage at Falls Festival, featured in VICE.
“Some of my fondest memories have been at Valve Sounds parties that we threw back in the day,” recounts Liu. “Feeling grateful to be working with Maina Doe, IJALE and King Ivy – three artists who I truly believe represent the future of music coming out of Australia and beyond.”
Through the new arrangement, Valve Sounds will have access to Mushroom Labels’ full suite of services across marketing, promotion, audience building, social strategy, distribution and analytics as well as global promotion, marketing and audience label services via UMG’s Virgin Music Label & Artist Services, an alliance forged in 2022, in tandem with Mushroom’s existing U.S. and U.K. teams.
Previously, Valve Sounds had a label partnership with Sony Music.
Valve Sounds now operates among the 25-strong group of companies within Mushroom Group, established 50 years ago by the late Michael Gudinski.
Mushroom Group CEO Matt Gudinski, the son of Michael, heaped praised on his new partners. “Their clear vision for the label and expertise in the R&B and hip-hop scene excels them as key industry leaders of the future,” he comments. “It’s with great pleasure we welcome them to the family and look forward to a longstanding relationship.”
Mushroom Labels includes Liberation Records, Ivy League, I OH YOU, Soothsayer, Bloodlines, Liberator Music and 100s + 1000s.
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Dua Lipa has accumulated quite the collection of trophies, from Grammys to Brit Awards, Guinness World Records and now, and the European Excellence Award.
The pop superstar received the Excellence Award over the weekend, an honor that recognizes positive representation of European culture through an artist’s music, and the best in the business from the ESNS Exchange, previously known as European Talent Exchange Programme.
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Only those acts that are seen as strong ambassadors for European music, and as role models for fellow European stars-on-the-rise, are considered for the hardware.
Lipa, who is British of Albanian origin, nails the brief.
Her career has gone supernova in recent years. In March 2022, Lipa’s hit “Levitating” logged a 70th week on the Billboard Hot 100, in doing so rewriting the record for the most weeks ever spent on the survey for a song by a woman. Among all acts, “Levitating” is just the fifth single to spend at least 70 weeks on the Hot 100, dating to the chart’s August 1958 inception.
Earlier, in 2021,”Levitating” was named the top Hot 100 song for the year in the United States, and its parent album, Future Nostalgia, logged four weeks at No. 1 in the U.K., before scooping British album of the year at the BRITs.
ESNS presented Lipa with the award during her keynote interview for Eurosonic Noorderslag 2023 in Groningen, the Netherlands, at which she discussed the release of her sophomore album during the pandemic, the successful world tour in support of it, and the Lipas’ Sunny Hill Festival in the Kosovo capital, Prishtina which was shortlisted for the European Festival Awards and which they hope will put the country on the cultural map, and raise much-needed funds to develop the nation’s arts and cultural sector. Just last year, she was named honorary ambassador to Kosovo.
Lipa first performed at ESNS at Vera in 2016, and the following year won the European Border Breakers Awards (EBBA), now called the Music Moves Europe Awards (MMEA). Also in 2016, she won for newcomer of the year at the European Festival Awards.
The 27-year-old now turns her attention to the fashion world. As announced by Vogue on Wednesday (Jan. 18), she has signed on to be one of four 2023 co-chairs for the A-list fashion event that comes around every first Monday in May.
Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” (via Columbia) is sowing the seeds for a second week atop the U.K. chart.
Based on midweek sales and streaming data captured by the Official Charts Company, “Flowers” is “storming” ahead of its rivals.
If it holds its ground, “Flowers” would become the U.S. pop star’s longest-reigning U.K. No. 1, and her only single to spend multiple weeks at the summit. Her previous leaders “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball” both logged single stints at No. 1 back in 2013.
“Flowers” got away to a fast start around the globe, smashing Spotify’s one-week streaming record, and bowing at No. 1 in Australia.
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In the U.K., “Flowers” leads an unchanged top 5 on the midweek chart, which is completed by singles from Raye, SZA, Taylor Swift, and Venbee & Goddard, respectively.
Meanwhile, hot Afrobeats artist Rema is eying a new peak position with “Calm Down” (Mavin), up 9-6 on the Official Chart Update, while Tiësto and Tate McRae’s “10:35” (up 17-14 via Atlantic/Ministry of Sound) and Cian Ducrot’s “I Will Be Waiting” (up 23-19) are on the climb.
The highest new entry on the forthcoming Official U.K. Singles Chart could belong to Headie One, with “Martin’s Sofa” (Relentless) on track for a No. 9 debut. If it stays put, “Martin’s Sofa” would give the London rapper and songwriter a fifth U.K. top 10 and 13th top 40 appearance.
The only other new arrival in the midweek top 40 belongs to Ed Sheeran, with “F64” (Atlantic), the Brit’s tribute to his friend Jamal Edwards, the late founder of SBTV, who died in Feb. 2022 from cardiac arrhythmia after taking recreational drugs, aged 31.
“F64” is on target for a No. 33 start, which would give Sheeran his 58th top 40 hit.
All will be revealed when the national weekly chart is published this Friday (Jan. 27).
The Reytons could ride all the way to No. 1 in the U.K. with What’s Rock And Roll? (via The Reytons), the British indie band’s third LP.
Formed in South Yorkshire, the Reytons take pole position on the midweek survey and, assuming the album continues to reach fans in the second half of the chart week, should set a new career-best performance.
The group previously cracked the top 40 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart with May Seriously Harm You And Others Around (No. 27) and Kids Off The Estate (No. 11), both from 2021.
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It’s not the only rock album rolling to a top 5 berth. Black Star Riders are racing to No. 2 with Wrong Side Of Paradise (Earache), the band’s fifth studio album. Featuring several members of Thin Lizzy, Black Star Riders bagged top 40 appearances with each of their previous four LPs: 2013’s All Hell Breaks Loose (No. 25), 2015’s The Killer Instinct (No. 13), 2017’s Heavy Fire (No. 6) and 2019’s Another State Of Grace (No. 14).
Meanwhile, 2021 Eurovision winners Måneskin are tracking for a first-ever U.K. top 10 album with Rush (Columbia). It’s new at No. 3 on the Official Chart Update.
The rockers — Damiano David, Victoria De Angelis, Ethan Torchio and Thomas Raggi — made history when, in June 2021, they landed two singles in the U.K. top 10 (“I Wanna Be Your Slave” and the cover “Beggin’”), becoming the first Italian act to do so. Måneskin previously impacted the Official U.K. Albums Chart with Teatro d’ira – Vol. I (No. 49), also from 2021.
Also eyeing a top 10 debut is Dublin outfit The Murder Capital, with Gigi’s Recovery (Human Season). It’s new at No. 7 on the chart blast. Meanwhile, recordings from electronic-leaning outfit Ladytron (Time’s Arrow at No. 17 via Cooking Vinyl), metal act Riverside (ID.Entity at No. 22 via Inside Out), Welsh artist and Velvet Underground founding member John Cale (Mercy at No. 37 via Double Six), and NYC rock band We Are Scientists (Lobes at No. 38 via 100 Percent Records) are set to make a splash.
All will be revealed when the Official U.K. Albums Chart is published Friday (Jan. 27).
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