''The Thrill of It All'' is the second studio album by English singer and songwriter

Sam Smith Samuel Frederick Smith (born 19 May 1992) is an English singer and songwriter. After rising to prominence in October 2012 by featuring on Disclosure's breakthrough single "Latch", which peaked at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart, they ...

. It was released on 3 November 2017 through

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...

Background

On 6 October 2017, Smith announced via

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that their second album, titled "The Thrill of It All", was to be released on 3 November 2017. It is Smith's second full album of material after their hugely successful debut album ''

In the Lonely Hour ''In the Lonely Hour'' is the debut album by English singer and songwriter Sam Smith. It was released in the United Kingdom on 26 May 2014 via Capitol UK and Method Records. In the United States, it was released on 17 June 2014 through Capitol ...

'' (2014), which has sold 12 million copies worldwide. Speaking to ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' about the album, Smith said:

Singles

Too Good at Goodbyes "Too Good at Goodbyes" is a song by English singer Sam Smith. It was written by James Napier, Tor Hermansen, Mikkel Eriksen and Smith, and produced by Napes, Steve Fitzmaurice and StarGate. It was released on 8 September 2017 through Capitol Rec ...

" was released as the album's lead single on 8 September 2017. It topped the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

and peaked No. 4 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. "

One Last Song "One Last Song" is a song by English singer Sam Smith. It was written by Smith, Tyler Johnson and Charles Emanuel Smalls, with production handled by Steve Fitzmaurice, Jimmy Napes and Johnson. The song was released on 3 November 2017 through C ...

" was sent to radio in the United Kingdom on 3 November 2017, on the day of album release as its second single. On 27 March 2018, Smith announced that "

Pray Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified an ...

" would serve as the third single, and would feature newly recorded guest vocals from American rapper

Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

. The song was released on 29 March 2018. " Baby, You Make Me Crazy" was released as the fourth single from the album on 29 June 2018.

Promotional singles

On 6 October 2017, Smith released "Pray", a gospel-tinged ballad in collaboration with Timbaland, prompted by time spent in Iraq with the charity War Child as a promotional single from the album. Another promotional single, "

Burning Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combusti ...

", was released on 27 October 2017.

Tour

Within releasing "Pray" as the promotional single on 6 October 2017,

The Thrill of It All Tour The Thrill of It All Tour was the second concert tour by English singer Sam Smith, in support of their second album '' The Thrill of It All'' (2017). It began on 20 March 2018 in Sheffield, England, and concluded on 18 April 2019 in Cape Town, S ...

was announced firstly revealing shows in Europe and North America. It began on 20 March 2018 in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

, England, and concluded on 18 April 2019 in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, South Africa. In December 2018, ''

'' concluded that after 94 shows, Smith grossed $86.1 million and sold 1.07 million tickets on The Thrill of It All Tour. It pushed their career total gross to $102.7 million from 1.4 million tickets sold.

Critical reception

''The Thrill of It All'' received generally positive reviews from music critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 72 based on 16 reviews.

Neil McCormick Neil McCormick (born 31 March 1961) is a British music journalist, author and broadcaster. He has been Chief Music Critic for ''The Daily Telegraph'' since 1996, and presented a music interview show for Vintage TV in the UK, Neil McCormick's Nee ...

of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' gave the album four stars, and was highly positive about it and Smith's vocals, calling them "supernatural" and saying: "''The Thrill of It All'' doesn't just wallow in love's misery, it practically drowns in the stuff. There's not much poetry in lines such as 'real love is never a waste of time' or 'there's no insurance to pay for the damage'. Yet it all hits home, because Smith makes every note sound like a matter of life and death. 'Him' is the album's centrepiece, a gospel drama addressed to a judgmental 'father', insisting on Smith's right to love whom chooses. It is a kind of hymn to Him, and as the choir powers up it gains a righteous glory." Andy Gill from ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' also gave a four-star review, and shared in the positivity about the album, remarking: "Smith's voice remains a thing of wonder throughout".

Will Hermes Will Hermes (born December 27, 1960 in Jamaica, Queens, New York City) is an American author, broadcaster, journalist and critic who has written extensively about popular music. He is a longtime contributor to ''Rolling Stone'' and to National Pu ...

for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' also gave a positive four-star review, and said: "Doubling down on his magnificent, gender-nonconforming voice while pushing his songcraft forward, Smith's second LP knights one of the mightiest, most expressive vocalists of his generation." In another positive review Nick Levine from ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' compared Smith to

Adele Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (, ; born 5 May 1988), professionally known by the mononym Adele, is an English singer and songwriter. After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a reco ...

in his review of the album, stating: "Both have become enormously successful by singing emotional ballads that connect with huge numbers of people, and both are understandably reluctant to raise the tempo as a result. But like Adele's '' 25'', this is an undeniably accomplished album that will, deservedly, shift a helluva lot of copies.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

's Andy Kellman was positive too in his three and a half-star review, and opined: "this album maintains a consistency and intensity that places it slightly above the debut." Some reviews were more negative. Though making it his album of the week and giving it three stars,

Alexis Petridis Alexis Petridis ( el, Αλέξης Πετρίδης; born 13 September 1971) is a British journalist, head rock and pop critic for the UK newspaper ''The Guardian'', as well as a regular contributor to the magazine '' GQ''. In addition to his mus ...

from ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' was more mixed in his review, writing: "There's a certain power to "The Thrill of It All" but it could have been a much more potent album if they'd laid off the polish just a little."

Kitty Empire Kitty Empire is the pen name of a British writer and music critic, currently writing for ''The Observer''. Early life Empire says that she was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1970 and brought up in Canada, Italy and Egypt before arriving in Britai ...

from ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' was less enthusiastic in a more negative two-star review, claiming Smith was "moping by numbers" like Adele, and surmised: "There is little drama here, just plenty of shorthand (sad pianos), a total absence of risk".

Accolades

Commercial performance

''The Thrill of It All'' topped the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

in its first week of release with 97,328 combined units (consisting of 83,637 sales and 13,691 sales-equivalent streams), giving Smith their second number-one album in the nation after ''

'' (2014). It also had the fifth-largest opening there at the time for a 2017 album. The record fell to number two the next week with a combined total of 52,781 units. before returning to the top spot three weeks later and being displaced by

Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher Sheeran (; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently r ...

's '' ÷'' the following week. In Australia, the album opened at number two on the

ARIA Albums Chart The ARIA Charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling songs and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA became the offici ...

, becoming the singer's second album to enter at that position after ''In the Lonely Hour''. It additionally debuted at number one on the Irish and Scottish charts. The album debuted at number one on the US ''Billboard'' 200 with 237,000

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditi ...

s, including 185,000 pure sales, giving Smith their first chart-topper and highest opening sales in the United States. It also had the country's seventh-largest album opening of the year at the time. ''The Thrill of It All'' dropped to number two the following week, earning 66,000 album-equivalent units. It also became their first number one on the

Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocea ...

, debuting with 16,000 units, including 9,500 copies.

Track listing

Notes * signifies an additional producer *Track 6, "Him", is stylised as "HIM".

Personnel

Credits adapted from album's liner notes. * Vicky Akintola – backing vocals *

Simon Aldred Cherry Ghost were an English music group which began in 2006, first as an alias for singer-songwriter Simon Aldred as a solo artist, before morphing into a full band. Their debut album, '' Thirst for Romance'', was released in July 2007 and ent ...

– electric guitar * Tom Archer – assistant engineer * Ian Burdge – string leader *

Cam Calmodulin (CaM) (an abbreviation for calcium-modulated protein) is a multifunctional intermediate calcium-binding messenger protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells. It is an intracellular target of the secondary messenger Ca2+, and the bind ...

– electric guitar and backing vocals *

The Dap-Kings Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album ''Dap Dippin in 2002, the fir ...

– horns * Henri Davies – assistant engineer * Larrance "Rance" Dopson – piano *

Steve Fitzmaurice Stephen Fitzmaurice is an Irish mixer and producer based in London, England. His credits include albums for Depeche Mode, Seal, Sam Smith, Ian Brown, Kylie Minogue, Sting, Paloma Faith, Olly Murs, The Kooks, Alicia Keys, U2, Hikaru Utada, an ...

– producer , additional production , engineer , mixing , additional drum programming , percussion * Richard George – string leader * Isabel Grundy Gracefield – assistant engineer * Nathanael Graham – assistant engineer * Brendan Grieve – producer , engineer , programming and celeste , drum programming , electric guitars *

Simon Hale Simon Hale is a British composer, arranger, and keyboardist. Life Hale was born in Birmingham, England in 1964, being dually raised there and in South Manchester before moving to London, where he studied popular music at Goldsmiths College, Uni ...

– string arrangement and conducting *

Earl Harvin Earl Harvin is an American drummer, percussionist and multi-instrumentalist who has lived in Dallas, Texas and Los Angeles and is now residing in Berlin, Germany. Harvin studied at the University of North Texas College of MusicEmile Haynie Emile Haynie (born July 13, 1980), often credited simply as Emile, is an American music producer from Buffalo, New York. His range of production includes alternative rock, hip hop, indie and pop music. Haynie has worked with several prominent ar ...

– producer, programming, drums, percussion, and piano * Darren Heelis – engineer , drum programming , additional drum programming , additional Moog , additional bass guitar * Reuben James – piano , Rhodes , Wurlitzer , organ * Lawrence Johnson – additional choir vocal arrangements * Tyler Johnson – producer ; programming, drum loops, bass guitar, and electric guitar ; piano and Moog * Ben Jones – guitars , acoustic guitar , electric guitars , additional guitars * The LJ Singers – choir * Patrick Linton – backing vocals * Nick Lobel – engineer *

Bob Ludwig Robert C. Ludwig (born c. 1945) is an American mastering engineer. He has mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Qu ...

– mastering *

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

– producer, engineer, bass, and guitars ; programming and keyboards * Vula Malinga – backing vocals * Steph Marziano – assistant engineer * Tommy McLaughlin – assistant engineer * Jodi Milliner – bass , Moog bass , additional drum programming *

Jimmy Napes James Napier (born 18 September 1984), known professionally as Jimmy Napes, is an English songwriter and record producer. He has won a number of awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, 3 Grammy Awards, and 2 Ivor Novello Awar ...

– producer , drums and organ , original percussion , drum programming , additional drum programming , piano , Middle 8 piano , organ , synth pads * Everton Nelson – string leader * Darryl Pearson – guitar * LaDonna Harley Peters – backing vocals * Gus Pirelli – engineer , Moog bass * John Prestage – assistant engineer * Will Purton – assistant engineer , additional drum programming *

– lead vocals , backing vocals *

Stargate ''Stargate'' (often stylized in all caps) is a military science fiction media franchise based on the Stargate (film), film directed by Roland Emmerich, which he co-wrote with producer Dean Devlin. The franchise is based on the idea of an alien E ...

– producers and original percussion *

Timbaland Timothy Zachery Mosley (born March 10, 1972), known professionally as Timbaland, is an American record producer, rapper, singer, songwriter, and record executive. He has received widespread acclaim for his innovative production work and distinc ...

– producer, drum programming, percussion, 808 bass, and synth pads * Lucy Whalley – string contractor * Bruce White – string leader *

Yebba Abigail Elizabeth Smith, (born January 16, 1995) known professionally as Yebba, is an American singer and songwriter from West Memphis, Arkansas. She first became known for her backing vocal performance on Chance the Rapper's SNL performance of ...

– featured vocals

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thrill of It All (Sam Smith album) 2017 albums Albums produced by Emile Haynie Albums produced by Malay (record producer) Albums produced by Stargate Albums produced by Timbaland Capitol Records albums Sam Smith (singer) albums