Sam Smith Gay English crooner Sam Smith has shattered expectations to emerge as one of 2014’s most promising new talents, debuting with an album documenting his love for another man. “My aim is to tell people how good it’s been for me so that, hopefully, gay men or parents with gay children can look at my story and think, wow, that’s how it should be.” Smith’s vocals have propelled him to the top of the charts. Honesty, it seems, is the new formula for success. “I feel no pressure to live up to anything,” says Smith. “I say what I think, act how I want to act, post what I want to post.”

Photograph: JUCO