Undisputedly as captivating and visually-stimulating as anything you would see in a conventional music video, the imagery found in the new lyric video for Johnnie Mikel’s single “Nothing to Lose” definitely presents us with a fun take on the intriguing pop song. In more ways than one, Mikel’s vibrant personality bleeds into this unique video experience, but make no mistakes about it – the most exciting thing about this release is the soundtrack it’s sporting. There are a lot of really interesting pop songs making it out of the underground and into the mainstream spectrum this season, but if there’s one that I would recommend listeners examine more than any other this month, “Nothing to Lose” is certainly among hot tracks that immediately come to mind.
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I really love the swing of the percussion in this single. Although there are a lot of fireworks being generated by the harmonies at the forefront of the mix, I like that Mikel wasn’t stingy about putting an extra bang into the drum presence here. There are a number of different ways to highlight a groove, but rather than following the trend many of his indie peers have been lately – saturating the backend of a song with a lot of bass-heavy noise – he goes with a slightly more traditional framework in this instance and comes off sounding a heck of a lot more mature because of it. It’s an ironic means of setting yourself apart from the crowd, but at in this business, irony can be more of a blessing than it is a curse.
The vocal is always the dominant force controlling the spotlight in “Nothing to Lose,” but this isn’t because of a lack of instrumental prowess in the track at all. On the contrary, I think this statement only confirms what most of Johnnie Mikel’s fans already know about his sound – that his voice is its signature crown jewel. He’s had some time in his career to really cultivate his best skills around a singular formula, but he’s rejected the very notion of streamlining his style altogether. In “Nothing to Lose,” he’s reestablishing a standard that I’m really hoping his peers will live up to in their own work this summer, if for no other reason than to make the scene just a little more interesting than it would have been in another scenario.
Cathartic pop fans needn’t look any further than Johnnie Mikel’s “Nothing to Lose” for a good time this June, and I seriously doubt that I’m the only music journalist who is remarking as much at the moment. Mikel is working with one heck of a broad skillset, and while this isn’t the lone occasion on which he’s made a big impact on the scene that gave his music life in the first place, it’s a good point of measurement for where he’s at moving into the 2020s. This is definitely a good era to be a fan of independent pop music, and artists like this one are undeniably the reason why.
Troy Johnston