HOZIER'S RETURN IS ALL "TOO SWEET"

When a recording artist is fortunate enough to score one #1 smash, as Columbia’s Irish folk-rocker Hozier did back in 2014 with the Grammy-nominated anthem “Take Me to Church,” you could be forgiven for assuming the song would remain his lone chart-topping calling card. With this year’s monster single “Too Sweet,” however, Hozier has achieved the rare feat of scoring his second #1 a decade later.

It should be said that in the intervening years Hozier—born Andrew John Hozier-Byrne in 1990—remained prolific, garnering a plethora of awards and acclaim in both the U.K. and the U.S. His sophomore album, 2019’s Wasteland, Baby!, earned lots of critical love, and he continued to draw fans as a vital live act (he’s repped by WME’s Kirk Sommer for North America and by CAA in the rest of the world). He was also steadfast in his commitment to social justice via actions like staging a COVID-era livestream to raise funds for the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and dropping the feminist track “Swan Upon Leda,” the lyrics of which liken the battle for women’s reproductive rights in repressive regimes to a struggle for liberation from occupation.

Still, a second best-selling global single eluded him—until now. “Too Sweet” (which appears on the 2024 set Unreal Unearth: Unaired) has hit #1 in seven countries: the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway. The massive track has occasioned considerable chatter about a possible ROTY and/or SOTY Grammy nomination. (“Church” was a SOTY contender.)

Stylistically, his two giants could not be more different. “Take Me to Church,” you’ll recall, is a churning, mournful, minor-key lament that likens romantic devotion to religion while simultaneously mocking the hypocrisy of religious institutions. Heady stuff for a song that topped the charts in 12 countries. “Too Sweet,” on the other hand, is marked by a sparse, funk-derived guitar riff that sits atop an insistent R&B groove while the song’s narrator playfully chides his lover for living a safe, orderly, risk-averse life. In true YOLO fashion, the song’s narrator proclaims, “I think I’ll take my whiskey neat/My coffee black and my bed at three/You’re too sweet for me.”

Talking to Variety about the playfulness of “Too Sweet” that distinguishes itself from Hozier’s earlier, weightier lyrical approach, the self-effacing singer-songwriter attested, “I’ve had a quiet laugh to myself about that. I’ve written songs that definitely deal with more complicated, more difficult themes, for sure. But I guess it’s something that’s fun and immediate and doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s part of its appeal. And it’s also why maybe initially, when the choice came of putting it on the album, I thought that maybe it wouldn’t have worked. But there you go.”