Teddy Swims’s Lose Control has become a generational, unavoidable hit. Billboard declared it the top single of 2024; it refuses to leave the UK charts after 14 months. Impressively, his 2023 album I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1) backed up its promise, testament to the 32-year-old Atlantan’s skill at crafting sympathetic settings for his stunning, gale-force voice. Hozier sings Adele is his default setting, which will never lose anyone money. And Teddy gives it everything. If he’s trapped in a glass case of emotion, it’s the size and weight of the Shard. Although, as soulfully weathered as his crooning gets, it has little of that genuine, binman-in-a-bear-trap pain of singers such as Jelly Roll.
That was fine on Part 1, which detailed Swims’s entanglement in an unhealthy relationship. The sunshine in his voice seasoned his professed unhappiness with a pleasantly odd bathos. Sadly, Teddy has since fallen in love. Part 2 feels more corporate, with its genre-hopping, playlist-pleasing songs and much gusty whimpering about how great his girlfriend is. Still, Funeral, Bad Dreams, Hammer to the Heart and Not Your Man are as good as this brand of pop gets. Swims will be inescapable for a time yet.
