Culture

Sam Smith gets hot and sweaty in a wrestling singlet for new ‘Queer Olympics’ music video with Demi Lovato

Sam Smith and Demi Lovato in the I'm Ready video

Sam Smith and Demi Lovato in the I’m Ready video. (YouTube)

Sam Smith and Demi Lovato have unleashed their brand-new single “I’m Ready”, which celebrates the LGBT+ community “in all its forms”.

“I’m Ready” arrives with a Queer Olympics-themed music video, which had its premiere on the iconic Times Square billboards in New York on Friday (April 17).

”The ‘I’m Ready’ video celebrates LQBTQ in all its forms,” Smith said in a statement.

“I don’t know if you’re queer like me, but for someone who is, sports might be frightening, a trigger. So to be an athlete in a music video with Demi Lovato was amazing.”

The track is the first single Smith has released since they announced they would be delaying their third album, previously known as To Die For, because of coronavirus.

Smith also said they will be renaming the album, because they “have done a lot of thinking the last few weeks and feel that the title of my album and imminent release doesn’t feel right”.

Sam Smith and Demi Lovato takes place at the Queer Olympics.

“I’m Ready” finds Sam Smith and Demi Lovato competing in a series of Olympic events, grappling with singlet-clad wrestlers and racing a group of drag queens.

Lovato presides over a synchronised swimming event, wearing a power suit as a group of red corseted athletes dive into the water.

The video culminates with Smith and Lovato dressed in white, accepting their medals to the sound of a soaring gospel chorus.

Fans swiftly declared the “I’m Ready” video “just a little bit iconic”.

Sam Smith says Demi Lovato collaboration is ‘2020 ABBA’

Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Smith described the sounds of the song as “2020 ABBA”.

“We’ve had fun doing this,” they told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, speaking from their home, where they are in lockdown.

“I haven’t taken myself seriously. I’m nervous about the song because the song for me is a song that’s reaching. And whenever I have those… You know what I say when a song’s reaching, when it’s like you’re reaching for the stars in the melody, you’re reaching for the stars in all of it.”

Smith joked that “I’m Ready” is almost “a bit musical theatre…it feels cheesy at times”.

And I’m trying to own that because that is a genuine feeling that comes out sometimes in the studio and it’s fun. It’s really fun to go to that place.

Ultimately, they said, the song is “about feeling no shame in some of the things that I make because I’m releasing music in a climate where music’s really cool a lot of the time”.

“And it’s okay to play around and have these moments without feeling ashamed for being really pop, you know? When you see the video, you’re going to scream.”

Smith will perform this weekend for One World: Together At Home. Watch the coronavirus benefit concert on BBC One this Sunday (April 19) at 7.15pm.

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