Sam Smith rockets to chart success

British singer-songwriter Sam Smith has gone straight to the top of the UK charts with his debut album ‘In The Lonely Hour’.

The 22-year-old’s album sold 101,000 copies in just seven days, knocking Coldplay’s ‘Ghost Stories’ into second place after a week at number one.

Sam Smith explained the inspiration behind his music: “With this album I wanted to create a concept piece, and so I decided to focus on something that I feel really strongly about – which is unrequited love and how that form of love is just as important as other forms of love. I spent my whole life kind of being pitied, I guess, in a way, because I have never been in a relationship myself… it is a melancholy album, but it’s also a hopeful album.”

Smith says that his label encourages him to be himself: “As soon as a label starts telling you they want you wearing this, wearing that, sounding like this, sounding like that – that’s for me, when the alarm bells come on because that’s you, the way I dress, the way I talk in interviews, the way I do all of this, that’s me. That’s me creating that.”

Smith’s painful story of unrequited love has naturally drawn comparisons to Adele’s album ‘21’, but Smith insists his work does not fall into any specific genre.

For tour dates and more information about Sam Smith see his official site.