Hello and welcome to another issue of the Guide. If you’ve been on the internet this week, it’s highly likely that you’ve come across Sam Smith’s new video, for their latest single I’m Not Here To Make Friends. In it, Smith wears a corset and some rather fetching nipple tassles, simulates drinking urine, and generally gets up to all kinds of things that someone not looking to get invited back to that gorgeous castle any time soon might do.
It’s a brash, camp affair which – perhaps unsurprisingly – has sparked the interest of many a keyboard warrior, as though Madonna wasn’t doing the same sort of thing long before “the culture wars” were even a twinkle in the Daily Mail’s eye. Indeed, while you could be forgiven for thinking that Smith (who uses they/them pronouns) was the first artist to ever make a raunchy music video, they’re not doing anything that pop stars haven’t done for decades, from George Michael to Cardi B and Meghan Thee Stallion.
