“What is this place? Can you take me back to somewhere, darling, where I feel safe?”
Sam Fender has had a whirlwind few years. The cause? Penning the undeniable Seventeen Going Under, a song that has sold over two million copies in the UK and catapulted him into the stratosphere. Hero to many, influence to more, and an artist enjoyed by multiple generations, Fender’s whole perspective has been turned on its head. Five years ago he was performing at Manchester’s O2 Ritz. Now, he can sell out a stadium in a heartbeat, and rumours of a Pyramid Stage slot at Glastonbury unceasingly circulate on social media. It’s a lot to grapple with, and People Watching, his first album in almost four years, finds Fender picking up the pieces left behind from such a meteoric rise.
The title track opens the album in classic Sam Fender fashion with a bold, singalong chorus with swelling guitars. It narrates a tale of loss, as Fender travels to and from a care home in the last days of his surrogate mother’s life. It is empathetic, steeped in reality and earnestness, but it is not revolutionary. Fans know Fender can pen songs like this in his sleep – an undeniable skill, but perhaps not something to get excited about if artistic evolution is what you are looking for.
Thankfully, this is where the familiarity ends. The following tracks see Fender shake off the shackles of British indie and embrace heartland rock (‘Nostalgia’s Lie’), combine Radiohead-style eeriness with Jeff Buckley-inspired vocals (‘TV Dinner’), dabble in Americana (Something Heavy) and homage nineties Bruce Springsteen (‘Crumbling Empire’ – a beautiful pastiche of Streets of Philadelphia), to produce an album that is not only a phenomenal work of British rock, but an example of generational songwriting. People Watching is an emotional gut punch and a musical powerhouse. It is the best work of his career so far.
“Chin up, I’m dancing to the rhythm of it.”
The album’s incredible production comes courtesy of producer Markus Dravs and Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs, whom Fender and his band recorded with in LA over the summer of 2024. Grandcuiel’s influence can be felt on the hefty, garage guitars of ‘Little Bit Closer’, and in facilitating a willingness to let the songs breathe. Plenty of tracks here reach well over five minutes, allowing Fender’s beautiful guitar work and lyrical portraits to settle in with the listener and resonate as strongly as they deserve.
The standout of this approach is the almost six-minute ‘Rein Me In’, perhaps the strongest song of Fender’s career. Beginning with an incredible fingerpicked refrain on the crispest acoustic production you’ll hear all year, the song builds in elements as Fender lyrically illustrates a romance sliding between his fingertips. Eventually, the song’s climax features the backing vocals of Brooke Bentham (whose voice elevates the whole album), a piano, and an inevitably gorgeous saxophone solo. It feels a natural successor to Seventeen Going Under’s standout: ‘Spit of You’, a song many dared not expect to be topped, let alone in such spectacular fashion.
“I don’t wear the shoes I used to walk in.”
No one writes about working-class reality with as much honesty and accuracy as Fender. Likely because it is a world he knows all too well, with his coming-of-age second record illustrating the trials and tribulations of his own upbringing. This intense relatability has undoubtedly contributed to Fender’s success, but has now left him in a difficult position. After all, he is no longer struggling or scraping by with friends in North Shields: he’s a rockstar. This sense of alienation has sent previous working-class stars into diminishing returns, Be Here Now by Oasis proving the prime example. But, rather than shying away from the changes in his life, Fender channels them, deftly exploring his newer struggles. The result is an album that is his most personal yet, but never loses touch with the political reality of his roots.
‘Crumbling Empire’ tackles the state of our nation in brutal detail, and ‘TV Dinner’, over the most unsettling and complex songwriting of his career, chastises those obsessed with celebrities when so many are without the basic necessities of survival. Fender might be uneasy about his position in the spotlight, but few individuals could remain so attached to the everyday under these circumstances. For acting as a spokesperson for the downtrodden, Fender deserves every bit of credit he gets.
“Memories of you ring like tinnitus.”
Despite its bright production, this is Fender’s darkest album. The shifting sands beneath his feet have sent him scrambling for purpose and understanding. The ghosts of past loves, past celebrations, and futures he may have experienced, haunt Fender between every drum beat. Drugs rear their head throughout, with ‘Wild Long Lie’ providing a stark portrait of friendships strained by time and circumstances, held together by cocaine-induced anecdotes. However, substances fail to provide the answers he seeks, and (as in album omission ‘Me and the Dog’, the b-side to ‘People Watching’) Fender tackles religion on ‘Little Bit Closer’, desperate for proof of salvation: “show me you can walk on water.” Of course, no proof is forthcoming, but an equally powerful conclusion is reached.
Fender’s life has undoubtedly changed, having slipped free of its netting and perhaps lost its previous meaning. But leaning into nostalgia or a higher power is not the way out. Instead, love, empathy, and having someone to hold is the closest thing to bliss Fender can expect. It is the closest any of us, the everyday people this album so poignantly documents, can hope for. And, in that realisation, Fender finally grasps just what we all need right now: empathetic hope.
“For them it’s a council house, to me it’s a home.”
Drawing all these threads together, the album closes with the ambient, orchestral and truly touching ‘Remember My Name’. An ode to Fender’s grandfather, who took care of Fender’s grandmother during her battle with dementia, the song documents their life together, a love shared in the streets that raised the song-writing superstar. Beautifully mundane, terrifically ordinary, and performed and written in Fender’s rich Geordie timbre, it is a perfect love song and a genuinely tear-jerking tribute to Fender’s past. Like all of People Watching, it is an extraordinary work, and a fitting closer to a generational record. North Shields should be very proud indeed.
