Sam Smith Is Already Recording Their Sixth Album — and It Sounds Nothing Like the One They Haven't Released Yet
Sam Smith has already started work on their sixth studio album, they told The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast — a project they described as "more electro and more intense" than anything they have put to tape before. The reveal lands one week before their fifth album, Hazel Eyes, reaches the public on 21 August 2026, available for preorder since June (Billboard).
The contrast between the two records is the point. Hazel Eyes was recorded with live musicians singing and playing instruments in the studio; Smith called it "this deep confession, a new traditional queer love romance album." The follow-up, by Smith's own description, trades that warmth for "intense hyper pop electro sounds." One is built on wood and voices. The other is wired.
Smith also gave the new album a emotional frame. The songs are about falling in love and being in love with their fiancé, the fashion designer Christian Cowan, whom Smith discussed in a New York Times interview published 28 July 2026. Smith described the material as approaching that relationship in a "more naughty, playful way" (Billboard; The New York Times).
For context on where Smith sits commercially: their 2022 single "Unholy," a collaboration with Kim Petras, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — the chart that tracks the most-consumed songs in the US each week across sales, streams and radio airplay. Their previous album, Gloria (2023), peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, which ranks the biggest albums by equivalent units, a metric that folds streaming and track sales into album-sale figures (Billboard).
The lead single from Hazel Eyes is "My Guy," released ahead of the album (uDiscover Music). Smith's Instagram has also flagged a track titled "When He's Gone" as available now, though the post carries no dated confirmation (Instagram).
No title, release date or label details have been confirmed for the sixth album. Smith gave no timeline beyond the fact that recording has begun.
What stands out is the pace. Most artists wait for an album cycle to run its course before sketching the next one. Smith is talking about LP6 before LP5 has even hit the shelves — and the sound they are chasing is a sharp pivot from the live-band intimacy of Hazel Eyes into something built on synthesisers and adrenaline.
For fans, that means two very different Sam Smith records may arrive in relatively quick succession, and the one coming next already has a shape: loud, electronic and written in the glow of a love story.
