Sam Smith has released a new song just in time for Christmas called ‘The Lighthouse Keeper,’ with an exclusive video which premiered on Facebook today. The song can also be streamed in audio on Youtube, Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music or can be downloaded from iTunes or by signing up to a mailing list. The video, which was directed by Sam Smith, is simple and charming animation which has a hand-drawn look and effectively tells the story of the song while evoking nostalgic emotions that we all feel at Christmas by adopting a drawn style similar to that of classic Christmas films like the Snowman.
Sam Smith’s voice is leant to another collaboration with Labrinth, who wrote and produced this song and it has all of the cinematic charm of ‘Still Don’t Know My Name,’ with the benefit of a refined pop vocal. According to Rolling Stone, ‘This is the second time Smith has worked with Labrinth, who produced the eponymous title track for their new album Love Goes.’ The two certainly seem to be a winning pair, with the catchy vocals of Sam Smith contrasting well with the more cinematically minded Labrinth to create real mature and original pop music.
The release of this Christmas single comes less than a month after Sam Smith’s third album ‘Love Goes,‘ released on the 30th of October this year. Despite a scathing review in The Guardian, which described the album as ‘plenty of gloom but not much glitter,’ the album has at least charted well, reaching number two and has been on the charts for three weeks since its release. While previous efforts ‘In The Lonely Hour,’ and ‘The Thrill Of It All,’ performed better, reaching number one when they released in 2014 and 2017 respectively.
The album has not produced any of the big hitting singles that Sam Smith has been known for in the past, such the number one’s of the early twenty teens ‘La La La’ and ‘Money On My Mind,’ the best performing single from this third album so far is ‘Diamonds,’ which has only made it as far as number 11 since its release. Perhaps this is not a sign of decline for Sam Smith but in fact an indicator of artistic maturity, where the music being produced by this artist is no longer created purely for the purposes of chart success, but has a deeper meaning and purpose at work.
This latest release will certainly have got many Sam Smith fans into the festive spirit and might well have inspired a few of them to get hold of ‘Love Goes,’ which can be bought on CD or Vinyl from all good record stores or online merchants. While chart success may not be Sam Smith’s biggest goal anymore, it is certainly very exciting to see this artist beginning to really mature an alongside another great talent like Labrinth who is also a very exciting artist and producer to watch right now.
