Sam Fender - People Watching

People Watching - Sam Fender

There's a particular kind of songwriter who makes you feel less alone in the world. Sam Fender is one of them. His third studio album, released in 2025, is the sound of a young man from North Shields, northeast England, looking out at the world and refusing to look away from what he sees, economic anxiety, loneliness, ageing parents, the quiet desperation of ordinary life, and somehow, against all of it, the stubborn persistence of hope.

If you haven't heard Sam Fender yet, here's what you need to know: he plays guitar like he means it, he writes lyrics like a novelist, and he has a voice that sounds like it was built for wide open spaces and late nights. He's been compared to Bruce Springsteen, not lazily, but because the comparison is genuinely earned. Like Springsteen, Fender makes music about working class life that doesn't condescend to it. He celebrates it, mourns it, and refuses to let it be forgotten.

People Watching is his most assured record yet. Where his previous albums announced his arrival, this one settles in, more confident, more spacious, more willing to sit with difficult emotions rather than rush past them. The title track alone is worth the price of admission: a gorgeous, aching observation of strangers on the street that somehow becomes a meditation on mortality. Classic stuff.

The guitars are enormous. The production is cinematic. And underneath all of it is a beating, very human heart.

Why it belongs on vinyl: Sam Fender's music is fundamentally analogue in spirit, big guitars, real drums, songs written to be played loud in rooms full of people. The warmth of vinyl suits him perfectly. Put this on at volume and you'll understand immediately why arenas full of people sing every word back at him.