I don't like either Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran, let's get that out of the way right now. I'm pretty much in the minority though, it seems. People love their moonfaced songboys and I'm ready to exploit that for clicks.
In one corner we have Sweet Sugar Sam Smith, the shockingly unattractive 23 year old from London, I couldn't tell you any of his hits because while I have his Wikipedia page open, they are probably so generically titled that I would forget them by the time I got back to this tab.
His opponent, from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, the Ginger Gladioator, Ed Sheeran. A man who looks like a shaved bigfoot on the best of days. Would it kill him to have a real haircut? Maybe it would Joe, maybe it would.
Looks:
Sam Smith. It was tough but at the end of the day I had to side with the man who grooms himself. Sam Smith more or less knows how to dress. He has bad hair but that's never kept anyone from being famous. I can more easily imagine Smith being more of a sex symbol than Sheeran, who as I mentioned earlier looks like a shaved big foot. Sheerhan also looks kinda like a guy I used to work with called Marco. Marco was a mess, presumably still is, bless his heart, and I probably shouldn't be so hard on him because unlike me he seems to be somewhat successful with women. Maybe Ed Sheeran is secretly hot? Sheeran's idea of dressing up seems limited to putting a sport coat over a t-shirt. A look I won't tolerate. By 24 you need to know better. Collars wont kill you, you bug dummy! Ugh.
Smith 1 Sheeran 0
Sales
Sheerhan has two albums, the pretentiously titled +, and the also pretentiously titled x. I dislike this guy more and more the more I read about him
Smith is on album number one, In the Lonely Hour. A much more palatable title.
Sheerhan's sales at this point beat the snot out of Smith's, but it isn't a completely fair comparison. If we look at just the numbers for Sheeran's debut vs Smith's, it shifts to Smith's favour. Sheeran's + sold approx 1 958 000 copies in the UK and another 1 100 000 in the US, In the Lonely Hour sold approx 1 750 000 in Britain and 2 million in America. So by that criteria Smith is the winner.
Sheeran's x however has sold 12 million worldwide, significantly more than Smith, who's album has worldwide sales of 8.5 Million.
This one, I think is a draw.
Smith 2 Sheeran 1
Awards
Awards don't really mean anything, especially in music, a medium so vast and subjective. But they're sure great when you're trying to do these sorts of comparisons!
The biggest award in popular music is probably the Grammy, for which both have been nominated 6 times. Sheeran has won zero and Smith has an impressive four.
Second tier is probably the Brit Awards, since both these guys are British it might have more weight with them, I don't know. I just know I don't care about them. They both have eight nominations, Sheeran narrowly edges Smith out 4-3
Smith I think wins this one.
Smith 3 Sheeran 1
Critical Reception
This is based solely on Metacritic averages, so don't get mad at me if you don't agree with the assessment.
Sheeran is ahead on this one averaging 67 for both his albums, Smith is 5 points under at 62.
Not much more to it than that. This section is as boring as both their music.