In a previous post, I discussed my feelings when I first heard Kanye West’s album, 808's and Heartbreak. 808's came out when I was still 19 and I didn't have the life experience to appreciate heartbreak in the powerful, sometimes tortured way that West describes it. However, at 25, I've seen enough. I know what it's like to tell the person who you loved that you don't want to talk to them ever again because it hurts to hear their voice. I know what it's like to try to rebound from it. I know what it's like to be rejected because I'm too young, the wrong color, too passive, too forward or for no reason given at all. I know what it's like to cope in ways that aren't healthy at all. With the benefit of hindsight, I know what it's like to laugh at those moments, too. Sam Smith's well done LP, In the Lonely Hour isn't about the funny parts of a romantic dissolution. It's about the vulnerable, wretched, pathetic, feeling of being unwanted.
The lead single "Money On My Mind" is the beginning and end of the upbeat portion of the LP. When I first heard the song, I only caught the lively exterior and missed the lyrics altogether. Listening to it after hearing the rest of the album, I wonder if the thing he's doing "for the love" isn't creating music, but the creation of this album. The album varies in tone from stirring songs like "Stay With Me" to soft songs where the vulnerability in the lyrics matches the music like "Good Thing". The album isn't just about unrequited love. It's about pathetic vulnerability. In some ways, the presence of the lead single makes more sense if I tweak my interpretation of the lyrics from "making music for the love of it" to "making this album because of love" in a romantic sense. I might be reading too much into it though.
All of the songs from 2-10 are variations on a theme (all of this, without a single shoutout to Haydn, apparently). There's a great portion of the song "Good Thing" where he says "And still I never say what I want to say/ I thought I wouldn't need to" followed later by "I put everything out there and I get nothing at all". There's a weird incongruence where he says he's putting everything out there but he's holding back something (That he loves the person). Later, he revisits that feeling in "I've Told You Now", where he tells the person. The existence of the rest of the album shows that it didn't go well. He revisits the idea again in "Not In That Way". The songs are good in their own right and I enjoy the fact that he returns to similar themes (Telling someone you love them when it's not clear they feel the same way). The songs are good in their own right and I enjoy the fact that he returns to a similar theme (telling someone you love them when it's not clear they feel the same way). "Lay Me Down" and "Stay With Me" are also similar lyrically. "Like I Can" may as well be the B-Side of "Leave Your Lover".
In the Lonely Hour touches on all of the tiny details of feeling heartbroken. All of the album seems to take place while the emotions are still raw. The album sits in a period of implied rejection without any explicit rejection. This album doesn't have the most varied topics. It's a bit obsessive, running through what could have been with what seems to be a single person. But where other albums by weaker artists would falter, In the Lonely Hour is carried by the strength of Sam Smith's vocals and the music that support his vocals. It also helps that the album is only 10 songs long, a manageable 32 minutes. Sam Smith has other songs that show that he can sing about other things, but this album shows the power of what music can sound like when you're singularly focused.
