Myles Smith

Luton, an open mic and a phone camera

Myles Michael Smith-Thompson was born on 3 June 1998 in Luton, Bedfordshire, into a British Jamaican family. He taught himself guitar and piano and was singing at local open-mic nights by the age of 12, but he did not go straight into music. He read sociology at the University of Nottingham and graduated in 2019.

What shifted was a phone and a cover. Smith posted stripped-back reworkings of other people's songs on TikTok, and his version of Amber Run's "I Found" travelled furthest. In autumn 2022 one of those clips reached the lawyer Eric Parker, who became his manager, and a Sony deal followed in late 2023. His first single under it, "My Home", arrived on 13 October 2023 and became the lead track from the debut EP You Promised a Lifetime in March 2024. It has since been certified silver in the UK and gold in Canada and New Zealand.

Stargazing, and the two years that followed

"Stargazing" was written in Malibu in January 2024, on Smith's first trip there, with the songwriter Jesse Fink and the producer Peter Fenn. Smith has said the title came from a sunset he watched with friends over the ocean: "It was getting late in Malibu, and we're looking over at the ocean and the sun setting, and in that beautiful moment, I stood there and it was quite cathartic. We threw the word in and it found its life there."

Released on 10 May 2024, it reached No. 4 in the UK and finished among the 20 biggest songs in Britain that year. It spent a week at No. 1 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart in September 2024 and peaked at No. 19 on the Hot 100 in early 2025. By September 2026 it had passed a billion Spotify streams and collected multi-platinum certifications across the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The rest came quickly. A second EP, A Minute…, was released on 8 November 2024 and reached No. 32 in the UK; a third, A Minute, a Moment…, followed in May 2025. "Nice to Meet You" reached No. 6 in the UK and topped Alternative Airplay in July 2025, and he cut "Blink Twice" with Shaboozey the same year. He was named BBC Introducing Artist of the Year for 2024 and won the Brit Awards' Rising Star prize in 2025, one of three Brit nominations. His first festival set had come on 25 May 2024, on the BBC Music Introducing stage at Radio 1's Big Weekend — held that year at Stockwood Park in Luton, a mile or so from where he grew up. The Slightly Less Lonely Tour and the We Were Never Strangers Tour carried him through 2024 and into 2025.

An album that took its time

The debut album was announced on 20 March 2026 for a 12 June release, then pushed back a week to 19 June, a delay Smith framed in terms of his own mental health rather than studio logistics. My Mess, My Heart, My Life came out through It's Okay to Feel and RCA, with Peter Fenn engineering most of it and additional production from Ammo and Oscar Görres. Five singles preceded it between September 2025 and June 2026, among them "Drive Safe", a duet with Niall Horan issued on 6 February 2026.

Smith described the record plainly on announcement: "This album is the most honest thing I've ever made. The title really says it all — it's about the mess, the heart and the life that sits around it." It entered at No. 2 in the UK and in Scotland, also reaching No. 2 in Wallonia, No. 22 in Switzerland and No. 135 on the Billboard 200.

Critics split hard. Alexis Petridis in the Guardian gave it two stars out of five, writing that it showed "how indebted Smith still is to the artists he started out covering" and calling the result faceless and formulaic, with Mumford & Sons, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran audible throughout. Will Richards in Rolling Stone UK gave it four, singling out the opener "My Mess", built around excerpts of a therapy session, and "Dying Day" as the record's high point, alongside "Sertraline" and "Hold Me in the Dark". Elise Ryan in SFGate landed in the middle at 3.5, judging that "Smith is at his best, here, when he is vulnerable and direct". Smith's own defence of the length of the wait, to Rolling Stone UK: "Why would I put out an album if I don't have an album's worth of things to talk about?"

Where he stands in September 2026

At the point the album and tour were confirmed in March 2026, Smith was running at 20.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The live career has scaled faster than the discography. He opened for Ed Sheeran on the European leg in 2025 and played the NFL International Series halftime show at Croke Park in Dublin on 28 September 2025.

Through the summer of 2026 he was the direct support on the North American stadium dates of Sheeran's Loop Tour, including Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on 25 July, filling the slot immediately before the headliner in front of stadium-sized rooms. Between those he ran his own headline dates: Central Park SummerStage in New York on 25 August, then Indianapolis on 2 September, Saint Louis Music Park on 3 September, the Toyota Music Factory in Irving on 6 September, Pier Six Pavilion in Baltimore on 9 September and the Coca-Cola Roxy in Atlanta on 10 September.

The first arena tour

The My Mess, My Heart, My Life tour moves to Europe in October before the run that matters most to him: his first arena tour of the UK and Ireland. It opens at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham on 7 November, then First Direct Bank Arena in Leeds on 8 November, the OVO Hydro in Glasgow on 10 November, bp pulse LIVE in Birmingham on 12 November, Bournemouth International Centre on 14 November, Co-op Live in Manchester on 15 November, 3Arena in Dublin on 17 November and Utilita Arena Cardiff on 19 November, finishing at the O2 in London on 20 November — the largest headline show of his career so far.

Album pre-orders carried an artist presale on 25 March 2026, with general sale on 27 March. Josie Edwards and Chance Peña open the arena dates.