I’ve been vaguely aware of Sam Smith for some time - but only enough to know that I didn’t particularly care for his music. He was on SNL yesterday, and I wondered if any of you might be able to provide some context for what I saw.
Here are the 2 songs he did.
Should I just consider that “performance art”? Weirdness for the sake of weirdness? Did you guys love the performances? If so, could you explain what you loved about them?
I didn’t realize the woman was Sharon Stone - even after the subsequent photo of host Aubrey Plaza dressed as her in Basic Instinct.
Before last night, I had heard of Sam Smith but didn’t really know anything about him, and I hadn’t heard anything from him (except for his 5-second contribution to the BBC Music recording of “God Only Knows”).
My reaction to his performances on last night’s SNL:
Musically, I found them interesting. They’re not the style of music I usually listen to, so I hesitate to judge them based on just one hearing, but they might really grow on me if I did hear them some more.
I just now looked up the lyrics. “Unholy” is WTF. I don’t know what any of that means, but did it really take seven people to write it?
As for the performances, I’m not really a fan of that sort of weird spectacle, but I have nothing against it and can understand why some people might like it.
I’ve never purposely listened to Sam Smith, but “Stay With Me” was a huge hit and pretty much unavoidable almost a decade ago. Some of you may remember (I would think, anyway) that Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne ended up with writing credit (I think it was around 12.5% but I could be wrong) due to alleged similarities to “Won’t Back Down.” Another one I remember hearing a lot was “Too Good at Goodbyes” around 5 years ago.
Sometimes SNL will book a musical act out of left field. I remember a bearded woman a few years ago, and another female musical artist had her face covered in black webbing and danced so she wouldn’t face the camera. Or was it her double?
I’m sure there’s some underlying meaning to it all, or it’s performance art that leaves interpretation to the viewer. Guys dressed as women? Must be some kind of gender statement. Or mommy issues. Or he’s modeling for a fashion designer. What are they trying to communicate, if anything?
They’re genderqueer, so it’s not so much a guy dressed as a woman as a non-binary person performing in what they’re comfortable in, and doing it with rock-and-roll flamboyance. And this is hardly a left-field act. Their song “Unholy” has been a top five song since September.
This is just the continuing tradition of pop performers doing things to make old people shake their heads in utter confusion. Good for them.
That’s fine. But is that all there is to it? I assume they’re something about this music/performance that appeals to younger people other than that it confuses older folk.
I’m trying to think back to acts I enjoyed when I was young, like Bowie or Queen, with a large “glam” component. Tie Your Mother Down had subject matter as unconventional as Unholy (but, a killer riff IMO.) And some of the punks got by largely on attitude.
I don’t know much about Sam but I’ve always enjoyed them when I see them on live performances. I think Sam’s stuff was more poppy/accessible previously so I’m happy if they’re taking a bit of a pivot with this new album. Turns out Sam is freaky deaky!
I thought both songs were beautiful. Makes sense, they’ve got a beautiful voice.
I really dug the costume for the first song, and the song itself. Great idea having the woman pop out of the dress, super fun. The second song was more art but the presentation was great. Really cool of Sharon Stone to do it!
SNL musical performances are usually super showy these days. Sometimes someone comes in and does it straight up but the artistic ones are really fun and seem to be the norm. I dig it!
I don’t know, the subject matter is a guy cheating on his wife and buying the other woman gifts, just expressed in the language of the 2020s. And they’re in goofy costumes, as is customary. Bowie and Sam Smith are sort of equidistant from my generation of youth, and I don’t see what’s so unconventional, even if it isn’t much for me.
I don’t think it’s because it confuses older folks. It’s just that what appeals to young people (of every generation) has the potential to confuse older folks because it’s…not what they liked as a young person.
FTR, I’m a 48-year-old hetero dude, and I liked the performances. But don’t ask me to explain it. I guess I just like flashy, flamboyant pop music. Queen, Bowie, ABBA, 90s boy/girl bands and hip-hop artists, Lady Gaga, 80s hair/rock bands, Elton John, etc. Showmanship is fun.
Since his name has been mentioned a couple of times, here’s David Bowie’s memorable 1979 SNL appearance, featuring Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias. It seems to me that Sam Smith was likely inspired by this appearance. Bowie’s got the weird oversize outfit in Man Who Sold the World, genderbending outfit in TVC15 (along with a stuffed pink poodle with a TV screen for a mouth), unusual guest performers in Nomi and Arias, similar to Sharon Stone’s role in that second performance. There’s also weird green screen puppet action in Boys Keep Swinging, which of course also deals with gender identity.
I can only imagine that many people’s minds were blown by this when it premiered. If the SDMB were around in '79, I could imagine a similar thread to this being started.
I remember being half awake one Saturday in 1977 and trying to figure out why Frank Zappa was doing this weird song (it was Leon Redbone, which made me immediately go “Who the hell is Leon Redbone?”)
And that weird guy that sang the Might Mouse theme? WTF was up with that?
The first time I (and a lot of Americans, I believe) heard / saw Sam Smith was his performance of Stay with Me on SNL in 2016 (ish) I thought he was phenomenal and he did indeed take off. Then I lost track of him until this last ep. I found that performance equally as enchanting, if a huge departure from the first one. Pretty amazing to see his growth over the years,
I remember watching these very strange guys on SNL one night, whom I had never heard of before. They were wearing hazardous-waste suits, apparently playing in an industrial basement, and doing very odd things to the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.” It blew my adolescent mind.
