Unholy (released late 2022 but charted in 2021 equivalent period — replacing with:)
Sam Smith & Kim Petras
The production announces itself immediately — a thumping, almost militaristic kick drum under a bass line that feels borrowed from a fever dream of cabaret and contemporary club music. "Unholy" was engineered to be an event: dark brass stabs, a carnival leer buried in the low end, and an arrangement that constantly teases between theatrical restraint and release. Sam Smith's voice here operates in a register of barely contained theatricality, each syllable shaped with a kind of knowing drama that makes the subject matter — desire kept hidden behind a domestic facade — feel like something confessed in a spotlight rather than whispered. Kim Petras arrives as a counter-presence, lighter in tone but no less deliberate, her delivery adding a pop gloss that keeps the song from collapsing entirely into darkness. What's remarkable is how the track functions as both a dancefloor anthem and a character study, the narrative of secret wanting rendered with enough ambiguity that it invites projection rather than judgment. Culturally, it arrived as a statement: two openly queer artists at the center of a mainstream pop moment, making a song about transgression that topped charts globally without softening its edges. It lives best at volume, in motion — the kind of song that sounds different at 2 a.m. in a crowded room than it does in your kitchen at noon, and is clearly designed with the former in mind.
fast
2020s
dark, polished, dense
UK/US mainstream pop
Pop, Electronic. dark cabaret-club pop. provocative, theatrical. Opens with dark restrained tension and builds through knowing theatricality toward full confessional release on the dancefloor.. energy 8. fast. danceability 8. valence 5. vocals: dramatic theatrical mezzo, controlled and knowing; pop-gloss counter-vocal, lighter and deliberate. production: militaristic kick drum, dark brass stabs, carnival bass low end, contemporary club arrangement. texture: dark, polished, dense. acousticness 1. era: 2020s. UK/US mainstream pop. 2 a.m. in a crowded room at volume, bodies in motion and judgment suspended.