Unholy (Sam Smith and Kim Petras song)

"Unholy" is performed by British singer Sam Smith (left) and German singer Kim Petras (right)

Prior to the release of "Unholy", British singer Sam Smith earned global recognition for ballads released throughout the 2010s[1] as well as occasional features on songs by EDM producers, including on Naughty Boy's 2013 song "La La La" and on Disclosure's 2012 song "Latch". Kim Petras, a transgender German singer-songwriter, had been releasing pop and dance music, such as her 2017 single "I Don't Want It at All", since she independently released her debut single as a teenager.[2][3][4]

Petras agreed to work with Smith on "Unholy" after being sent a rough draft of the song and the two first met at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles a week later.[2] "Unholy" was recorded in Jamaica and produced by Ilya, Omer Fedi, Blake Slatkin, Jimmy Napes, and Cirkut, all of whom co-wrote the song with Smith and Petras.[5] Napes had previously collaborated with Smith on their hit songs "Stay with Me", "Too Good at Goodbyes", "Latch", "Lay Me Down", and "Writing's on the Wall".[1] It was first teased in mid-August through a clip on TikTok, which shows Smith and Petras dancing in a recording studio to a snippet of it that went viral and spurred a trend of sexually charged, thirst trap-style videos on the platform.[6][3] Disclosure also teased the song, playing their remix of it in live sets.[7] On 25 August, Smith announced the track's title and a pre-save link.[8] On 22 September 2022, it premiered on BBC Radio 1 and was released as a single through EMI Records and Capitol Records, making it Smith's first single in two years.[9][10][11][4] It was included on their fourth studio album, Gloria, which was released on 27 January 2023.[12]

A sexually charged[13] and campy[14] electropop,[15] synth-pop,[16] and dance-pop song,[17] "Unholy" marked a return to EDM and a shift from sentimental ballads to dance music for Smith.[3][18] It is in the key of C-sharp,[19] at a tempo of 65.5 beats per minute,[20] and uses the Phrygian dominant scale[21] often associated with Indian[22] and Arabic music.[17] It features Gregorian choir-like vocals,[19][23] a "grinding" bassline,[24] a string section,[25] and metallic hyperpop-style synths and percussion popularized by Scottish musician Sophie and the record label PC Music.[26][27]

The metallic production of "Unholy" was compared by critics to the production style of Scottish musician Sophie (pictured)[28]

Its lyrics are about an adulterous[13] heterosexual[29] family man who goes to a strip club behind his wife's back to have sex.[17][30] Smith described it as being about "liberating oneself from the clutches of others' secrets".[5] In its hook, Smith sings, "Mummy don't know Daddy's getting hot/At the Body Shop/Doing something unholy"—referencing the Body Shop, the first all-nude strip club on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood—accompanied by an "oh-wee-oh-wee-oh" chant popularized by the winged monkeys from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.[24][3] Petras's verse features braggadocio and sees her asking her lover to buy her luxury clothing.[25] Chris Molanphy of Slate remarked upon the song's "sinister edge" and "high-camp energy" and compared it to "early-2010s peak-EDM era" pop music by artists such as Avicii and Kesha.[3] Neil McCormick of The Telegraph described it as "a cross between a Brecht & Weill cabaret showstopper and a Pet Shop Boys electro stomp".[31]

For The New York Times, Lindsey Zoladz wrote that "Unholy" "sounds like the most fun [Smith has] ever had on a song".[14] In a review of Gloria, Helen Brown of The Independent called "Unholy" the "stand-out banger" of the album, while Elly Watson of DIY picked it as an "undoubted standout" from the album, where, according to her, its "catchy melodies" were "elsewhere untouchable".[25][32] The Sydney Morning Herald's Annabel Ross called it "promising" compared to other "inoffensive" songs on the album.[33] For Variety, Jem Aswad wrote that "Unholy" was "one of the most musically innovative and unusual songs in years" to top the Billboard Hot 100.[30] It was praised as an "inescapably catchy" "masterpiece of oversexualised nonsense" that "leaves everything else [on Gloria] feeling rather grey" by the Evening Standard's David Smyth.[34] Lauren Murphy of The Irish Times called it a "musical banger... that booms, clatters and pings in all the right places", while AllMusic's Andy Kellman called the song "[Smith's] most distinctive dance-pop song since 'Latch'" and "without doubt anomalous in Smith's songbook".[35][17]

Slant's Paul Attard described "Unholy" as the "towering centerpiece" of Gloria with lyrics that were "a little too cutesy to ever feel as truly transgressive as the music itself".[26] Vulture's Jason P. Frank wrote that it was "a difficult song to get excited about" and "impressively un-tantalizing, the most basic kind of infraction", also asking, "Is this truly the best gender transgression we have to offer right now?"[29] Slate's Chris Molanphy wrote that "Unholy" was "serviceable radio fodder" that was "almost conventional in its adherence to Top 40 trends" and that he "waver[ed] between delight and annoyance at [the song's] hook".[3] For Pitchfork, Jamieson Cox wrote that "Unholy" "sound[ed] worse in an album-length context" and that "its transgressive glee scann[ed] as shallow and theatrical up against more grounded, mature material" on Gloria.[36] Kyndall Cunningham, writing for The Daily Beast, stated that she "vehemently disliked" the song, which she referred to as "a little too intense and, conversely, unserious" with an "unbearably cheesy" opening line, before hearing it on Gloria, where "the intensity of the track finally made sense in [her] ears" after hearing its transition from "Perfect", the previous song on the album.[37]

BuzzFeed News's Alessa Dominguez commended the song's "zany originality" compared to the rest of Gloria, which she called "uneven". Petras's verse was praised by Dominguez, who wrote that she "plays her sugar baby role to perfection", though it was called "trite" by Mark Richardson of The Wall Street Journal and "unimpressive" by Riley Moquin of The Line of Best Fit.[38][23][39]

At the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, Petras and Smith also won the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance award for "Unholy", making Petras the first openly transgender artist to win a major-category Grammy Award and the first openly transgender woman singer to win a Grammy Award.[40] During her acceptance speech, Petras thanked "all the incredible transgender legends performing who kicked these doors open", also thanking Sophie and Madonna.[41] It marked Smith's first award since 2015 and Petras's first award overall.[42] It was also nominated for the Brit Award for Song of the Year at the Brit Awards 2023, Smith's fourth nomination in the category and Petras' first Brit nomination in any category.[43] At the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, was nominated for Video of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Visual Effects, Best Direction and Best Choreography.[44] "Unholy" was listed as one of the best songs of 2022 by Rolling Stone,[45] Billboard,[46] Time,[47] Associated Press,[48] and USA Today.[49]

"Unholy" topping the UK Singles Chart gave Smith their eighth number-one and tied them with Oasis (top) and the Rolling Stones (bottom) on the list of artists with the most number-one singles in the UK

"Unholy" entered atop the UK Singles Chart on 30 September 2022, becoming Smith's eighth UK number-one to date—tying them with Oasis and the Rolling Stones on the list of artists with the most number-one singles in the UK—and Petras's first, having racked up 5.9 million streams in the UK in its first week.[50] It spent a total of four weeks at the top of the chart.[1] The song also debuted at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart, making it Smith's second number-one single in Australia and Petras's first.[51] It also topped the charts in Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Greece, Ireland, Hungary, Lithuania, Malaysia, Netherlands, and Slovakia.[52]

In the United States, the song debuted at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 for the chart issue dated 8 October 2022.[53] It earned Petras her first career entry on the chart.[53] In its fourth week, it reached number one, becoming the first song from either artist to reach the top of the charts and Smith's highest-charting single, surpassing 2014's "Stay With Me", which peaked at number two.[10] Petras and Smith became the first openly transgender and openly non-binary soloists, respectively, to reach number one on the chart.[54] It also became the first Capitol Records single to top the chart since Lewis Capaldi's song "Someone You Loved" did in 2019 and the first EMI Records single to top the chart since British band EMF's song "Unbelievable" did in 1991. The collaboration tallied 25.3 million streams, 21.5 million radio airplay audience impressions and 19,000 downloads sold.[10] It was also certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in March 2023.[55] The song surpassed one billion streams on Spotify on 3 April 2023, making it a part of the platform's Billions Club and becoming Smith's fifth song, after "Stay With Me", "I'm Not the Only One", "Too Good at Goodbyes", and "Dancing With a Stranger", and Petras's first song to reach the milestone.[56] "Unholy" also spent four weeks atop both the Billboard Global 200 and the Billboard Global Excl. US charts.[57]

The music video for "Unholy" depicts, from top to bottom: A man putting a coat on his wife after they exit a car; Smith dancing with androgynous backup dancers; Petras in a heart-shaped ring; and the video's cast, including the wife, taking a bow next to the man

The music video for "Unholy" was released on 30 September 2022.[10] Inspired by A Clockwork Orange and Bob Fosse, it was directed by Floria Sigismondi and choreographed by the French dance collective (La)Horde.[58][59] The video opens on a man, played by Henry Davis, opening a car door for his wife, who exits and is given a coat by the man after she starts shivering. The two part ways as she enters a strange building and looks at a condom-themed invitation to a club called the Body Shop. Her husband enters the club, which is disguised as an auto shop but is actually a sex club and cabaret for which Smith, who wears a leather harness[28] and is accompanied by androgynous burlesque dancers, is the MC. Drag queens Violet Chachki and Gottmik, both of whom were contestants on RuPaul's Drag Race, and pole-dancing strippers also appear at the club, along with gay pornographic star Paddy O'Brian. Petras soon arrives onstage in a heart-shaped ring and dances atop a car. The man is brought onto the stage before his wife arrives at the club to find him laid out in front of a suspended car with the words "liar", "cheat", and "fumier"—the French word for "shit"—spray painted on it. The woman walks down an aisle and gets on stage, taking off her wig and coat to reveal that she was part of the cast all along before taking a bow.[60][61]

Smith and Petras performed "Unholy" live upon its release on 22 September 2022 for BBC Radio 1.[9] The two gave their first public live performance of "Unholy" at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas the day after its release.[4] The two also performed the song at the Jingle Bell Ball in December 2022.[62] In January 2023, Smith was the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by actress Aubrey Plaza the week before the release of Gloria, where they performed "Unholy" in a top hat with devil horns and a large, pink, and ruffled dress designed by Tomo Koizumi that revealed Petras sitting inside of it; the performance also featured hooded dancers.[63][64] Michael Cragg of The Face wrote that the performance "felt exciting" as "an emblem of Smith's journey from purveyor of middle England Marks & Spencers music ... to something, perhaps, more genuinely groundbreaking."[28] They also performed the song live at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2023, where they were introduced by Madonna. The Satan-themed performance showed Smith in red leather clothing and a top hat with horns, surrounded by pyrotechnics and backup dancers dressed similarly to Samara Morgan from the 2002 horror film The Ring, as well as Petras dancing in a cage. According to Petras, it was inspired by the two artists feeling excluded from religion.[65] American conservative politicians and pundits, such as Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Walsh, and online conspiracy theorists espoused the idea that the performance was a form of devil worship, with dozens of people filing complaints with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for that reason.[66][67] Elon Musk tweeted that the performance had "end of days vibes".[68] David Harris, a Church of Satan magister, called people offended over the performance "delicate snowflakes" and described it as "nothing particularly special".[69] A week later, they gave a performance of the song at the Brit Awards 2023 in an industrial set with black leather mechanic outfits, which was delayed due to technical issues and received 106 complaints to Ofcom.[70] As of 2023, "Unholy" is also part of the setlist for Smith's ongoing headlining 2023 concert tour, Gloria the Tour.[71]

After teasing their remix of "Unholy" in August 2022, Disclosure's house remix of the song was released in October of that year.[72] Remixes by Dxrk ダーク and Acraze followed.[73] An acid house remix of "Unholy" by David Guetta and a nu metal remix of the song by English rock duo Nova Twins were both released in December 2022.[74][75][76] An acoustic version of the song was performed by American singer Charlie Puth for SiriusXM to promote his studio album, Charlie, in October 2022.[77] English singer Anne-Marie and American singer Lizzo both performed "Unholy" for their BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge performances in November 2022 and February 2023, respectively.[78] Lizzo's performance included a live band and a 30-second-long flute solo from her; Justin Curto of Vulture stated that her cover was "better" and "more soulful" than the original.[79]

Credits adapted from AllMusic.[85]