Sam Ryder’s brief career has run on surprises: first, posting covers on TikTok, where this sweet, bearded hippie showcased a falsetto so astonishing it grabbed the attention of Alicia Keys. Then, at Eurovision this May, where he shocked a defeated nation by almost winning and, moreover, doing so with a brilliant song, Space Man. A cosmic ballad with touches of Elton and Bowie (and Harry Styles’s similarly inspired Sign of the Times) that made great use of Ryder’s vocal power, its clever, moving lyrics likened the isolation of heartbreak to being stuck in orbit. To boot, this effusively joyful former wedding singer was apparently entirely untouched by cynicism.
