On February 8th, the date of the 2015 Grammy Awards Ceremony Sam Smith made history for being the first openly gay winner of the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. The singer went home with three additional awards: Best New Artist, Song of The Year (which is awarded to the songwriters), and Record of The Year (which is awarded to the singer, producer, engineer, and mixer). Song and Record of the Year were both for ‘Stay With Me (Darkchild Version)’.
What makes Smith’s Pop Vocal Album win more impressive are the facts that it’s his debut and that the singer co-wrote every song on the album. In an interview with Digital Spy he described the album as being “a diary from a lonely 21-year-old.” As for what inspired the album Smith said, “I fell in love with someone who didn’t love me back, and it made me get into this head space of, ‘Will I ever find a man to love? When will I find love?”
GQ learned Smith’s goal when making the album. “I wanted my first album to appeal to absolutely everybody, which was why I was scared in the beginning about speaking about my sexuality. I was so scared that a few stupid people weren’t going to pick up my record just because I was gay.” With all the success of the album, it looks like he feels more comfortable to speak on his personal life because when accepting the award he said, “I would like to thank the man that this album is about. By breaking my heart, you won me four Grammys.”
All in all it was a momentous occasion for the LGBTQA community; we saw one of our own win a coveted award for his work and the same man acknowledged his sexuality by thanking his muse on national television. Congratulations to Sam Smith – we look forward to hearing from you in the future.
Thanks for reading and feel free to leave me a comment on what you're listening to. The links for the articles I referenced are down below. The picture is from the official Grammys website; there's a link below that will take you to more pictures of Sam Smith. Thanks again for reading, have a good one!
http://www.grammy.com/artist/sam-smith/photos
http://www.gq.com/entertainment/music/201502/sam-smith-new-rat-pack
http://www.digitalspy.com/music/interviews/a573024/sam-smith-interview-im-saying-st-other-artists-would-veer-away-from.html#~p7ks5xrj6paQrg
