More than a decade into a zigzagging career that resembles a discarded snake shedding its skin and then quickly trying on a new, more fashionable one, JMSN still oozes the determination—perhaps tragically so—of an artist desperate to prove his relevance. After fronting the forgettable band Love Arcade as a teenager and aborting a solo run under the auspices of Universal Motown, the Detroit singer found a flicker of life with 2012’s self-produced Priscilla, a slab of pensive crooning and electronic murk tailor-made for the fleeting “alternative R&B” boom. This was, crucially, the era of How to Dress Well, Autre Ne Veut, and Trilogy-era Weeknd, a period when Tumblr feeds could still spontaneously generate genuine buzz and the descriptor “alternative R&B” could reasonably stake a claim as actually being “alternative.” He has since served as the versatile utility player of the scene: a guest vocalist for various rappers (Kendrick Lamar in 2012, and depressingly, Babyface Ray’s 2025 tracklist); a regular during the heyday of millennial tastemaker Soulection; and an apprentice of R&B jam history with a wide-ranging, yet often derivative, formalist streak.
His accidental “big break”—the type that only happens when an algorithm takes pity—finally arrived last year: “Soft Spot,” a snazzy club throwback from 2023, went viral on TikTok, and predictably, more songs from his back catalog have followed suit. Now, with …it’s only about u if you think it is., he trades in the slow-burn neo-soul playbook for a curated ’90s moodboard, clumsily setting his sights on a different alternative by aping the sonic grandiosity of Radiohead, the slinky dread of Portishead, and the dynamic histrionics of the Smashing Pumpkins, all while maintaining the practiced, unearned cool that has become his default mode. The results, though occasionally compelling in their audacity, are ultimately a mixed bag of aesthetic cosplay that rarely transcends mere imitation, landing with a calculated thud.
The essential, disturbing pull of “Soft Spot” wasn’t the song’s generic Atlanta-bass beat, but its director’s-cut music video, in which JMSN—a spindly, buzz-cut, sweaty white man—gyrates with unsettling, unapologetic intensity on a packed dancefloor, staring straight through the camera’s soul. With a pitched-up falsetto that mirrors other hyperreal TikTok R&B hits, the song is a calculated attempt to whisk us back to an era when the fleshy pleasures of pop music hadn’t yet been smothered by the passivity of streaming, and kinetic male charisma could still, somehow, speak for itself. Given his youthful timbre, which can readily recall the polished slickness of Justin Timberlake, his quest to “bring sexy back” is at least intuitive, even if the seedy corners of Clinton-era MTV rock feel like a flimsy testing ground for genuine sleaze.
Take the single “Dirty Dog,” which explicitly shoots for the sonic and lyrical gloom of Trent Reznor circa “Piggy,” with visceral, self-debasing lyrics draped over an interlocked mesh of competent, albeit overly slick, beats. But it sounds too polished, too clean, to ever convince you of the flickering intensity of desire it purports to capture. “By sunrise, I automatically get turned on,” he drones lifelessly, exuding the sense of someone going through the motions rather than a genuine slave to their appetites. This performance points to a recurring, fundamental problem for JMSN, who has perpetually sought star power by simply trying on thrifted vintage outfits from our musical past. He is, to his credit, a versatile vocalist and producer who knows how to streamline any song into its most functional, punchy core—the album’s emphasis on crisp bass and drums makes it undeniably easy to latch onto. Yet, behind this competent, highly functional surface, the songs utterly lack the subtler, psychologically complex details that allowed their original pop modes to be either memorable or emotionally believable. “Everyone” is merely adequate Smashing Pumpkins emulation, utilizing quiet-loud dynamics that are too obvious to feel either intimate or truly grandiose. The same goes for the cinematic buildup of “Love the Things You Hate,” complete with a strained Thom Yorke knock-off moan. JMSN often seems too preoccupied with the novelty of these borrowed forms to complete them with lyrics that reveal much beyond rhyming cliche. He claims he’s “a sad sack of bones,” then immediately cries, “just leave me alone.” A true loser, operating at the level of his predecessors, would find something far more pathetic and original to say. When he tries to capture the cryptic, stream-of-consciousness thought-streams of his influences, it collapses into sheer contrivance: “Swallow my thumb/Suck on my gun.”
Occasionally, however, the challenge of adapting these disparate styles produces an interesting friction. JMSN’s bundle of influences is painfully obvious, but the sheer culinary clash of how he combines them is what generates a brief flash of intrigue—he’s like an alternate-universe Beck for whom the rock cues, rather than the hip hop ones, are the unexpected stylistic choices. His years spent crafting slow-burning neo-soul bear considerable fruit in the album’s full-bodied vocal leads, careful moods, and attentive rhythm sections; the slinky, rugged beats often have the appealing, tactile feel of trip-hop played with live percussion. There’s something genuinely daring in how “Click Bait” manages to appropriate the grunge skronk and shouted refrain of Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box” into its surprisingly poised, skeletal frame. The track is all taut rhythmic pressure, barely allowing any proper guitar riffs or a vocal melody to come up for air before everything is doused in a gaudy, yet effective, wash of strings. The album’s sharpest musical moments consistently come when bursts of hair-raising energy are inserted into his more composed, vibe-first surroundings, expertly synthesizing JMSN’s curatorial impulse with genuine musical brawn. “Blow the Spot Up” breaks open its groove with a desperate, offbeat scream of a chorus, while “I Don’t Even Think About U” escalates from the album’s closest approximation of trip-hop into its best, most aggressive stab at emo.
These occasional, tantalizing heights only make the overall project more frustrating. For all of JMSN’s undeniable gifts as a versatile producer and vocalist, his experiments ultimately don’t add up to a cohesive, memorable creative identity. He might simply be the perfect artist for a music landscape ruled by short-form vertical video, where any morsel of pop can freely disseminate from its source to audiences with their own, often disconnected, priorities. (JMSN’s other viral moments since “Soft Spot” have hardly featured his lead vocals at all: 2023’s “Love Me” is clipped for an overdone gospel choir to, among other things, make fun of Drake; and 2014’s “Bout It” gets points only for its background millennial whoop.) Maybe next time, he’ll tweak his palette of references just enough to truly shock us out of our complacency. Then again, given his track record, and the fact that the algorithm clearly loves a sleek, competent imitation, maybe he doesn’t feel the need to.
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