Sam Fender – People Watching
It’s easy to be skeptical of Sam Fender. Blond, blue eyed, looking like Gary Barlow’s indie kid brother, with a name that feels like a brand endorsement, when he picked up the Critics Award at the 2019 BRITs, you might have mistaken him for the industry’s latest tastefully distressed millennial singer-songwriter. But since his debut single in 2017, the canny chanter from North Shields has emerged as the most driven, distinctive and fascinating British pop artist since Amy Winehouse. Advertisement THE MARCH 2025 ISSUE OF UNCUT, STARRING WILCO, A FREE WILCO CD, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, PATTERSON HOOD, THE WHITE STRIPES AND MORE IS AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW His second album, Seventeen Going Under, released in autumn 2021, was a remarkable achievement in particular, a British pop record that revealed something of the temper of modern times. Fender sang of retail parks, cocaine, casual violence, the DWP and suicide – a world familiar enough in the works of Stormzy or Sleaford Mods, but close to a revelation in the heart of the Radio 2 A-list. What sold the vision was Fender’s endearing anger and confusion, and his rich Geordie roar, as though the Angel of the North was suddenly breaking into song…. Read More →





















