We’ve all known the feeling of losing a best friend or getting out of a toxic relationship. And it’s these emotions that form the heartbeat of Lauren Spencer Smith’s music. At just 19, the artist is carving a name for herself with songs that hit you in the feels and are about as real as they come. Born British, raised Canadian, Spencer Smith emerged onto the pop scene in 2020 through American Idol, where she stood out thanks to her killer vocals and heart-on-sleeve performances.
Since then, Spencer Smith’s journey to stardom has been the modern Gen Z dream: Riding the wave of TikTok influence, she’s used the power of social media to connect, resonate, and uplift with her music. In late 2021, Spencer Smith found her first viral success on TikTok with her heartbreaking ballad “Fingers Crossed.” She released it as her first-ever single in January 2022 and followed it up with another viral hit—“Flowers”—by that April.
“I owe my life to social media,” she tells Glamour. “It’s been with me from the start and the best way to connect with my fans and share my music.”
Spencer Smith’s debut album, Mirror, out now, reflects the singer-songwriter’s hopes, heartbreaks, and everything in between. “Every time we write a song, it’s always a reflection of a personal experience,” she says. “So there’s this kind of metaphor with calling it Mirror. Your mirror is the one thing in your life that sees every single side of you that no one else gets to see.”
The deeply personal lyrics, delivered by her raw, soulful voice, drive that message home with grand-scale emotion. The 15-track album holds up a mirror to toxic relationships, best-friend breakups, and finding growth through pain.
“I realized that the story of the album was just the story of my life,” Spencer Smith says. “It’s getting over the breakup, learning things about yourself, and learning how to heal again. A big part of healing is songwriting. My fans are on a similar journey, and I’m making them feel less alone while they’re making me feel less alone at the same time.”
She continues, “When you’re young, everybody older thinks when you say you’re in love with somebody, it’s just a joke. I think there are different levels to love. You understand love more and more the older you get and the more experience you have, but it’s silly when people judge others for what they believe their love is at the time. I think life is just meant to be lived. If you feel like you’re in love, then you are in love, and it’s not for anyone else to judge. That’s why we wrote ‘That Part,’ an unapologetic song about loving someone and not caring what other people think.”
In a conversation with Glamour, Lauren Spencer Smith reveals the stories behind five of her most poignant songs, each representing a chapter in her life’s musical narrative.
“Best Friend Breakup”
This song came as a later addition to the album. What intrigues me about best-friend breakups is how unique they are. When we’re in the studio, emotions like sadness and anger often drive our music. But when we wrote this song, it came from a place of years having passed. It’s that moment when you unexpectedly encounter an old best friend at a grocery store, exchanging awkward words, both pretending the closeness you once shared doesn’t exist. So I love not feeling angry or sad toward someone when I listen to the song. The song is about losing a best friend without even realizing it’s a breakup. There were no explosive arguments, just a gradual drift apart—a common experience post-high-school or -college.