Pop quiz: Who had the Number One song of 2024? You’d be forgiven if you didn’t guess that it was the big-voiced yet tender-hearted Atlanta crooner Teddy Swims, whose desperation-tinged soul ballad “Lose Control” has been on the Hot 100 singles chart for a staggering 74 weeks as of this writing, hitting the weekly chart’s summit for a week in March. (It’s still hanging in there at Number 9.) It may have only topped the chart for a single seven-day span, but its out-of-time straddling of R&B and rock, as well as Swims’ old-soul charm and keenly honed talent for knowing when to hold back and when to hit the big ones, helped it slowly and steadily win last year’s pop race.
Swims’ success wasn’t exactly overnight: He’d started uploading covers of artists all over the pop spectrum — The Weeknd, Bonnie Raitt, Shania Twain — to YouTube in 2019 (and he got an RS profile that shouted out his “chameleon soul” in early 2021). “Lose Control” came out in June of 2023; its attendant album, I’ve Tried Everything but Therapy (Part 1), followed that September. Riddled with heartbreak and big hooks that showed off Swims’ ability to summon an Earth-shaking bellow, it established the singer as one of pop’s most sonically standout new voices.
A year and a half after Part 1 (and some months after its deluxe edition, cheekily given the Part 1.5 distinction), Swims is back with its sequel. I’ve Tried Everything but Therapy (Part 2) is, Swims has said, about “the journey of my healing,” although it’s not all sunshine and flowers; on its opening track, the rock-and-blues stomper “Not Your Man,” Swims is raging against a deceptive partner, but the way he commands its groove makes one wonder how good this particular brand of heartbreak makes him feel.
Whatever the emotional implications of that lying, cheating partner’s ways, the track sounds pretty good, and it kicks off a solid collection that showcases Swims’ vocal prowess and everyday-dude charisma. His voice works in quite a few different contexts, as evidenced by the elliptical bedroom-soul collaboration with R&B up-and-comer Giveon “Are You Even Real” and the throwback to spit-shined ’00s pop-country “Guilty.” He’s clearly a pop scholar, and he shines most brightly when he’s in settings that suggest jukebox hits of yore, like the melted-mirrorball slow-dance “Your Kind of Crazy,” or unplugged sessions where he can get intimate with his listeners, like the intricate “If You Ever Change Your Mind” and the luminous “She Loves the Rain.”
Editor’s picks
Part 2 peaks on “Black & White,” a plush duet with R&B belter Muni Long that recalls the locked-eyes team-ups of Seventies and Eighties country and soul. Its soaring strings and dry horns add to the old-school atmosphere, but the chemistry between the rasp-voiced Swims and the gently thrilled Long makes the song absolutely glow. Their voices weave in and out of one another while they delight in realizing that it’s “the right time to love you,” letting the listeners figure out what comes next. Swims might still be resisting the therapist’s couch, but his ability to work things out in his music has only become stronger.
