Sam Fender releases 'People Watching Deluxe'
On December 5th, Sam Fender released the deluxe edition of his third album 'People Watching', complete with some new songs. The album was originally released in February of this year, and alongside those, the deluxe edition of thee album, four tracks that originally featured on the North Shields singer-songwriter’s limited edition Record Store Day vinyl-only ‘Me and The Dog’ EP, including recent single ‘I’m Always On Stage’ and ‘Empty Spaces’, the deluxe also includes his collaboration with Elton John, ‘Talk To You’, and ‘Rein Me In’ with Olivia Dean.
The album also features two songs that fans have never heard before, 'Fortuna's Wheel' and 'The Treadmill'.
The album was already in serious contention for album of the year, and with these additional songs. Sam has made it less of a debate. With these songs, Sam Fender isn't people watching for the most part, he's addressing the people watching him, and the affects that is having on him.
Most prominently in the two newest songs. 'The Treadmill' and 'Fortuna's Wheel'. With 'The Treadmill' I'm finding it hard to see why he waited until the deluxe edition to release it. The track finds him cycling through self-doubt and plagued by comparisons to his peers: “Jesus Christ, I’m piling on the pounds/ Spent a year on the cans and blowouts/ Emasculated by my reflection/ Please God, give me a new complexion.”
'Fortuna's Wheel' ultimately addresses his substantial fame, how that is affecting him, "‘I hope my face isn’t plastered on your feed" he softly calls.
'Rein Me In' featured on the album, that was released in February and it's a good song. However, the version with Olivia Dean, first played at the London Stadium in the summer, has propelled the song up the charts, making it one of Sam's most pouplar releases ever, and helping propell Olivia Dean into one of the brightest sparks in UK music. It's brillaint. Her verse really adds an emotion to the song that wasn't there in the original, the two of them singing together adds a greater urgency, it's one of the best songs of the year.
'Talk To You' was the first song released from the deluxe edition of the album. Fender described the song in a press release: “It’s a song about the end of a long relationship – about the regret, the mistakes and the lessons that come with it. It’s that feeling of losing your best friend and coming to terms with that.”
He continued: “I was playing around with the riff and thought what I need is a really good pianist and then hmmm, I wonder who I can call? And of course, who better than Elton John.”
John added: “Sam was writing and recording in a studio in West London and called to say he’d written a song with a piano riff that he thought would sound great with me playing it. I couldn’t resist, and it was so much fun playing it for him.
“I truly love Sam. He’s been a friend for many, many years and it’s incredible to see him grow into being a truly world class artist.”
'Empty Spaces' rivals 'Remember My Name' as being one of his best piano ballads. Written about the empty spaces he finds in his head. The song ytakes him to the Hosptial Ward where his mother worked, and to his friends children in the form of a video. It's one of his most harrowing pieces of music, one that turns the lens back on himself.
When listened to in full 'People Watching' starts in a care home, watching Sam deal with the loss of one of the most important people in his life, and it ends with im inside his own head, thinking about his Mum. In between he takes us through the stories of those around him, his grandparents and the council house they called home in 'Remember My Name', the Low Lights Tavern and when the bad habits come home in 'Wild Long Lie', the decaying ship yards and poverty stricken streets of America in 'Crumbling Empire, and to the front pages of the tabloids and the impact that they have on people, in 'TV Dinner'.
It's arguably Sam's best collection of songs to date, and it may or may not be my album of the year