It’s no “ Show Me Love,” but the track nonetheless captures the intangible experience of losing yourself on a sweaty dancefloor at a gay club, where dancing, for a moment, is enough to get over an ex. Lawrence and co-producer Two Inch Punch nail the reverberating melodrama of classic heartbreak-on-the-dancefloor epics, while Smith, sidestepping mere imitation, uses the force of the instrumental to howl, wounded and brazen and determined. “Dance (’Til You Love Someone Else),” also produced by Lawrence, is Smith’s attempt at a ’90s house song.
“The second that I’m happy and I’m fine,” they sigh, “Suddenly there’s violins and movie scenes and/Crying rivers in the streets and/God I don’t know why, I get so serious sometimes.” The best, cheekiest writing comes on the infectious “So Serious,” which finds Smith acknowledging their addiction to emotional theatrics. On “Another One,” a deliciously petty yet disarming message to an ex who moved on, Smith reunites with Disclosure’s Guy Lawrence over pulsing 808 drums and twinkling synths that echo Robyn.
It’s remarkable how much better Smith sounds over quality pop production their voice, with its ridiculously elastic range, is an instant gut-punch, a wrecking ball of emotional devastation that conveys feeling all on its own. Single “Diamonds” is an absolute smash-melodic and morose, but pulsing with resistance and joy, it’s a dancefloor-filling breakup anthem that is actually believable. The Smith we meet on Love Goes’s first half is, thankfully, missing much of the self-pity that made In the Lonely Hour and The Thrill of It All so difficult to empathize with (perhaps because Love Goes was based on the disintegration of Smith’s first real relationship, instead of on the heartbreak of unrequited love their songwriting has improved as a result). The result is an unbalanced and frustrating album, one that is at times freer, queerer, and more enlivening than anything Smith’s done before, and yet too cautious to make what could’ve been a career-defining leap. As bonus tracks, if the album wasn’t unbalanced enough, Love Goes tacks on six promotional singles after the ballads, like the hugely successful, Normani-assisted “ Dancing with a Stranger,” the theatrical Demi Lovato team-up “ I’m Ready,” and the Calvin Harris-produced club hit “ Promises.” Replacing these songs, which would have fit well on Love Goes, with boilerplate Smith ballads with titles like “For the Lover That I Lost” and “Breaking Hearts” feels like a calculated, and ultimately ineffectual, attempt to keep the fans of Smith’s earlier records engaged despite Smith’s attempts at exploring new sounds. Love Goes, Smith’s third album, unfortunately fails to deliver on the promise of “How Do You Sleep?” The album is clumsily split in two, with no regard to sequencing it begins with a collection of bubbling, at times electric songs spanning melodic funk, pulsing deep-house, and mid-tempo pop, before abruptly veering to five messy ballads that would be better delivered via Hallmark card.
The video gave hope that Smith, who came out as nonbinary and changed their pronouns a few months after the single’s release, was proud to embrace their queerness and was finally moving past their typical, buttoned-up schlock. “How Do You Sleep?” was a revelatory moment for a pop star who, save for their breakout song, had relied on a stale combination of mopey piano, campy gospel choir, and self-flagellating heartbreak it’s a formula that made them famous, but the songs increasingly blended together. Moments later, Smith lets a smile loose, running their hands over their head in what looks like utter ecstasy.
It culminates in a hypnotizing choreography sequence where Smith and their dancers mime sleep while, staring deep into the camera, they slowly rock their hips. Surrounded by half-naked dancers, the British superstar writhes, snarls, and moves their body with coquettish sensuality. In the music video for their surprisingly vibrant single “ How Do You Sleep?” Sam Smith, usually the purveyor of masochistic melodrama and sexless shmaltz, blossoms into someone new.