Vevo UK has announced the latest artist to benefit from its Lift campaign: Sam Smith. He’s already released two exclusive videos for the service’s emerging-artists strand: ‘Becoming Sam Smith’ and ‘The Lonely Mind’ blend interviews and footage, following on from the success of his ‘Money On My Mind’ video, which Vevo says is one of its most-watched in the UK this year (its global view count is over 7.5m at the time of writing). Vevo says that Smith will feature in 10 exclusive videos over his eight-week Lift run, including acoustic performances and video diaries. It all leads up to his debut album release on 26 May, but also marks a path for Smith from Vevo’s early-stage DSCVR initiative in 2013 and its 2014 Ones to Watch list at the end of the year. “He was an artist we identified early on as someone we’d love for LIFT and now is the perfect time,” said VP of content and programming for UK and International Tom Connaughton. With Smith signed to UMG subsidiary Capitol Records, though, the choice may not dampen down criticism from some quarters that Lift is overly dominated by major-label artists.
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