Today, Sam Smith shared “Gloria,” the title track from their forthcoming album. The multi-Platinum, GRAMMY®, BRIT, Golden Globe, and Oscar-winning artist/songwriter penned the song during the lockdown, completed it with folk/blues musician Foy Vance and produced it alongside Jimmy Napes and David Odlum. Joined by the local choir London Voices, Sam recorded “Gloria” at the church they attended as a child, St Mary’s Church, Saffron Walden in Essex, a location that traces its roots back to the Middle Ages.
Smith – who will make their third appearance as the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” on January 21 – describes the new song 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.”
Set for release on January 27 via Capitol Records, Gloria is Smith’s fourth studio album. Fans who pre-order the digital edition will instantly receive “Gloria” plus “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 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” spent 50 days at #1 on the Global Spotify chart, topped the Apple and Shazam worldwide tallies, and was hailed as one of the best songs of 2022 by critics at Rolling Stone, Associated Press, Billboard, Esquire, and numerous other outlets.
Smith has racked up over 37 million adjusted album sales, 276 million single sales, and 50 billion career streams. A four-time GRAMMY® winner, Sam also holds two Guinness World Records – for the most consecutive weeks in the U.K. Top 10 Album Chart (for their 2014 debut, In The Lonely Hour) and for having the first James Bond Theme to reach No.1 on the U.K. charts (for the Oscar and Golden Globe-winning “Writing’s on the Wall”).