Sam Smith has been one of the highest profile artists in the world in recent years.

As a person Sam is inspiring millions with openness and honesty about sexuality and making sure that society feels comfortable with, and more importantly, understands the rights of all people, whatever their race, gender, religion of sexuality.

Most recently Sam Smith has been talking about his own non binary status and the belief that people should stop using genders to define people. Sam's music fascinates me, with powerful lyrics and melodies that carry an underlying passion, ‘To die for’ invokes an image of lust or love even before the song is heard. 

With a spoken message to start, you feel that this song has a purpose, not just another release from a popular artist to make money. When Sam Smith’s voice comes in, you feel that this is going to carry you on an unsurprisingly emotional journey. With added effects and recurring spoken loops this has a different feel to many of Sam’s earlier work. The piano work is simple, but moves gently between the sections and the melody encapsulates the mood of the song. It seems desperate, which is deliberate, talking about not being alone and that what is needed is the love of ‘somebody to die for’. We hope that this is more of a fictitious situation and that Sam Smith is happy with his life, both professionally and personally. The topic and use of words to highlight the points are clever and work to make you listen to the lyrics and appreciate the blend of voices and textures. 

Not surprising, this is a beautiful song, full of emotion, character and delivered with Sam Smith’s distinctive vocal, moving from falsetto to baritone, with accompaniment from loops and overdubbed harmonies. The production is simple, it is laid back and anything else would have spoilt the track. Another Sam Smith classic. 

 Singer-songwriter 

Author: Phil Arnold

Phil Arnold is a musician, producer and music reviewer from Devon, in the South West of England. Whilst not writing music reviews, Phil also writes and records under the name of Ugbrooke.