Today's Pick

To top off Sam Smith's wildly successful 2014, where he nabbed six Grammy nominations earlier this month, the 22-year-old British crooner busted out the champagne and suited up in a tux with the black-and-white music video for "Like I Can," the fifth single off his Grammy-nominated "In The Lonely Hour" album, directed by Sophie Muller and it's a total black-tie affair.
"Like I Can," a robust ditty which is, perhaps, one of the most underrated tracks on his entire album which highlighted he was really lonely and his unrequited love for another man. This song was inspired by Oleta Adams' "Get Here," as Smith explained: "I used that same format with the list of ways that he will never love you like I can." While the song's lyrics tell the story of someone desperately in love with another who seems to be looking for love in "all the wrong places," the video doesn't quite match the story the song tells.
Instead, it's an aesthetic masterpiece, following Smith and a crew of male friends as they experience a quintessential day in New York City, looking totally dapper in tuxedos, hitting up a corner bar, taking time to smell the roses outside of a bodega and busting out choreographed dance routines on the Brooklyn bridge and serenading folks in alleyways before a round celebratory shots at a local corner bar. Despite his past music videos being pretty somber in nature, Smith is showing off a new side of himself with his latest effort. It's such an unbelievably happy and playful clip despite the nature of the song.

Sam Smith debuted his scandalous, fiery and heartbreaking music video for his latest track, "I'm Not The Only One," the fourth single off his soulful debut album, "In the Lonely Hour," which tackles Smith's lack of a love life, debuted at No.1 on the UK charts and has sold over 1.3 million copies. The 22-year-old British crooner's new video features two TV stars depicting a unhappy married couple's tortured relationship and portrays the effects of a husband's affair on his devastated wife.
We've featured Smith's angelic falsetto many a time, but his latest single employs it to devilish effect, "I'm Not The Only One" is a smooth, slow-burn revenge ballad and further proof that Smith is primed to make a big splash with his debut album. He wrote this song with Jimmy Napes, who explained: "I wanted to make a Norah Jones-esque record with a heavier beat. This is the same chord pattern again and again. It's complex in its simplicity." Infidelity is an ugly, wretched subject, but at least Smith has given it a beautiful soundtrack. "I'm Not The Only One," makes revenge sound very, very sweet.
The Luke Monaghan-directed steamy and emotional clip features "Glee's" Dianna Agron as a scorned bride and "The Mindy Project's" Chris Messina as the cause of and cure for her heartache. While the gorgeous couple's life seems perfect on the outside, Agron's character knows she's "not the only one" in her husband's life. Agron delivers a powerful performance as a stepford wife onto his adulterous schemes and trying to keep it together after realizing her husband is cheating on her. "You say I'm crazy," Smith's lyrics echo the anger and frustration Agron's character feels about her husband's cheating ways and pieces together her husband's indiscretions.
"'Cause you don't think I know what you've done/ But when you call me baby/ I know I'm not the only one." Messina's clandestine encounter is intercut with Agron's furious reaction, as she weeps at their home, proceeds to uncork a bottle of white wine in a liquor store, drink away her problems, and then eventually set fire to Messina's possessions. Not the most original imagery, but Smith's soulful vocal lends it some feel-good power. For reasons never explained, she welcomes him back into her home at the end of the video. Maybe her soul has been assuaged by Smith's sweet crooning?

Back in March, just before his impressive performance on Saturday Night Live, we declared the 22-year-old rising British singer Sam Smith deserving of the Adele comparisons frequently thrown his way (as Katy Perry recently tweeted that he's "a male Adele.") With his debut album, "In the Lonely Hour," is set for release June 17 stateside, he's released another love ballad "Leave Your Lover," along with its beautifully filmed video, and confirmed that earlier impression and he's worthy of all those Adele comparisons.
Smith made his name singing smooth, gliding dance-pop songs, but he seems to be changing course and moving into slick but emotive blue-eyed soul territory. His new single "Leave Your Lover," like "Stay With Me" before it, is a soft-focus piano-soul ballad. Smith said he allowed himself to experience heartbreak to inspire material for album, and it seems to have paid off. He really has it out for our feelings, and much like his last video for "Stay With Me," which saw him trudging through a gospel-powered walk of shame, "Leave Your Lover" tells a devastating love story and treads over some very emotional territory.
As its title suggests, the song is a passionate plea for Smith's crush object to leave their lover and be with him instead. "Pack up and leave everything/ Don't you see what I can bring," he sings over a gentle acoustic guitar and depicts falling in love with someone who doesn't share the same feelings for you. On its own, the song offers an honest take on what it's like to be in love with someone who's taken. The video, directed by Luke Monaghan, brings those heartbreaking lyrics to life and the video's unexpected ending adds depth to the love story. Unrequited love sucks.
Set against a series of gorgeous Parisian backdrops, the vulnerable clip finds Smith navigating a love triangle relationship among two close friends: fashion model Daisy Lowe and another man. There's clearly some sort of love-triangle dynamic going on, As he croons: "We sit in bars and raise our drinks to growing old/ Oh, I'm in love with you, and you will never know," ultimately pleading, "Leave your lover, leave him for me." The story develops it becomes clear one of his friends has other intentions, which leaves Smith heartbroken and alone, but also wiser from the experience. The evocative visual handles the subject matter with subtlety but the narrative is still fairly obvious. And if there were any doubts, the gut-wrenching final scene puts it all into perspective.

British soul crooner Sam Smith highlights unrequited love in the sparse video for his deeply satisfying new single, the gospel-inflected ballad "Stay With Me," the third single from his upcoming debut LP, "In the Lonely Hour," drops this May 26th on Capitol. British newcomer truly broke out in 2012 with his vocals on Disclosure's "Latch," and ever since, Smith has been spent the bulk of last year recording his debut album with Eg White and Fraser T, two songwriters whose résumés include Adele - one vocalist to whom Smith frequently draws comparisons.
Voice of an angel? Second coming of Adele? The best male voice to emerge out of England since Rick Astley? Well, regardless of which label best fits Smith, he's certainly making a splash stateside. With his pair-up with Naughty Boy, "La La La," steadily climbing the American charts, Smith struck out on his own with a bold showing on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. A darkly-clad Smith hit the stage and wowed the audience with two straightforward but powerful soul performances with  "Stay With Me" and "Lay Me Down." Between the two songs and their emphasis on his powerful voice, Smith made the most of his high-profile opportunity to draw in a wider U.S. audience.
Have you ever fallen for someone who just didn’t feel the same way? "In the Lonely Hour" finds Smith tackling his unsuccessful love life, and "Stay With Me" that best encapsulates the soulful nature of Smith's music finds him singing about a person he fell for one night, but who doesn't return the same sentiment, as he describes the devastating unfulfillment that can linger the night after a one-night stand, blending his powerhouse vocals together with the London-based Enchorus gospel choir for a song so breathtaking, it deserves those Adele comparisons. He told Rolling Stone: "I deal with all the different aspects of loneliness."
In the new clip, the 21-year-old singer coming out of a house and strolling forlornly through London streets and mixing it up with the song's gospel choir after an evening of love-gone-wrong. "Guess it's true, I'm not good at a one-night stand," he belts on the track over gospel piano, miming the lyrics to the camera, "But I still need love 'cause I'm just a man." The song builds from that quiet melancholy to a resilient chorus, and the video gets equally cathartic as Smith stumbles upon a massive choir in a nondescript church beaming with light that add more feelings to the already emotional song.