Stargazing

The story has become somewhat familiar by now. A promising young singer-songwriter uploads a handful of covers online, unexpectedly goes viral, amasses a community of fans (among them A-list names) and, eventually, earns a major-label deal. But the fact that Myles Smith’s story has followed a certain trajectory doesn’t make it any less remarkable: In only four short years, the Luton singer-songwriter has gone from hopefully uploading covers to TikTok to becoming a global breakout star thanks, in particular, to his inescapable 2024 track “Stargazing.” “I always believed in the feeling of the track and I always knew there was something special in it, but I think the extent it’s taken off, I definitely couldn’t have predicted,” Smith told Apple Music following its release. “To see the world having a similar, visceral reaction was quite surreal.” The deeply romantic “Stargazing” features up top on A Minute…, the follow-up to 2024’s earlier debut EP You Promised a Lifetime. And alongside it, there’s more of the soaring, folk pop the singer-songwriter has built his name on, complete with fiddles, handclaps, sing-along choruses, and open-hearted lyricism—and, of course, Smith’s warm, evocative vocals. See opener “Nice to Meet You,” for example, or the atmospheric “Wait for You,” on which Smith promises to be there for someone until they’re back to their best: “I see you fighting those demons inside/I will wait for you.” Elsewhere, James Bay joins for “Waste,” on which both singer-songwriters hope to cross paths with someone they’ve lost in a touching duet that feels like yet another sign of how far Smith has come. (Bastille’s Dan Smith also has credits on two of the EP’s songs, having joined Myles—a huge Bastille fan—on stage at Glastonbury in summer 2024.) The songs here concern getting together and staying together (“Take my heart, don’t break it/Love me to my bones,” pleads Smith on “Stargazing”), with plenty of promises from the singer-songwriter to stick with a loved one through thick and thin. But by the EP’s final moments, Smith also explores the devastation of when things don’t quite work out that way. “We were just kids who fell in love/We didn’t know quite what it was,” he sings softly on “Little by Little,” A Minute…’s delicate closing track. “Sad how we’ve grown so far apart/Everything’s fading out.”