In the Lonely Hour is the debut studio album by English singer and songwriter Sam Smith.
The album was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
In the Lonely Hour also received a nomination for Best British Album at the 2015 Brit Awards; the accolade ultimately went to Ed Sheeran for x.
It was announced on 16 December 2013 that Smith's debut studio album would be released on 26 May 2014 through Capitol Records.
The standard edition of the album contains ten tracks, including the singles "Lay Me Down" and "Money on My Mind".
[6] In an interview with Digital Spy, Smith described the overarching theme of their album as "sad".
In January 2014, the song entered the UK Singles Chart at number 134 after Smith won the BBC Sound of 2014.
It officially impacted Adult Contemporary radio in the United States on 14 April 2014.
The song is Smith's most internationally successful, peaking at number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 as well as reaching the top-five in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain and Sweden.
A live version of album track "I've Told You Now", performed at St Pancras Old Church, was made available for free download as part of an Amazon.com promotion on 27 December 2013.
"Make It to Me", co-written by Howard of Disclosure and Jimmy Napes, was made available for free download as part of an iTunes Store promotion on 13 January 2014.
This version features American recording artist John Legend and was released in aid of Comic Relief.
[14] In The Observer, Kitty Empire appreciated how restrained and emotionally authentic Smith's singing sounds, crediting them for avoiding any exaggerated belting, although she lamented the music's lack of adventurousness.
Club felt most of the songs are monotonous and lack depth, writing that they are instead showcases for Smith's "rich" voice on an album that is not as good as its singles.
[26] Q was more critical, especially of the album's second half, writing that it "declines into self-pity, windy balladry and squeaky-strings-as-authenticity cliché",[21] while Helen Brown of The Daily Telegraph was unimpressed by most of the songwriting and the music, calling it a watered-down version of soul.
[16] Robert Christgau was more enthusiastic in his blog for Vice, writing that Smith's charmingly catchy pop songs cohere into a portrait of a man whose insecurity about love is expressed more sincerely than most other artists without indulging in self-pity: "Both vocally and verbally, they offer the kind of emotional complexity about sexual romance's ins and outs that good pop captures better than good literature, where cynicism is such a folkway.
[38] On 18 December, it was announced that the album had surpassed the 1 million mark in the UK, having sold around 1,007,000 copies by midnight.
[40] On 4 September 2015, the album broke the record for most consecutive weeks in the UK top ten for a debut release, which currently stands at 67.
It was beaten to the top spot by Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence, which sold 182,000 copies that week.
In the Lonely Hour 10 Year Anniversary Edition is a reissue of Sam Smith's debut studio album In the Lonely Hour, released on 2 August 2024 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the album's original release.
Announced on 13 June 2024, it contains the 10 tracks of the original album and the previously unreleased song "Little Sailor" as well as newly recorded live performances.