More than a decade into a zigzagging career, JMSN still oozes the determination of an artist with something to prove. After fronting the band Love Arcade as a teenager and aborting a solo career on Universal Motown, the Detroit singer emerged with 2012’s Priscilla, a self-produced album of pensive crooning and electronic beats. This was the era of How to Dress Well, Autre Ne Veut and Trilogy-era Weeknd, back when Tumblr feeds could still generate buzz and “alternative R&B” could reasonably stake a claim as “alternative.” He’s been a guest vocalist for various rappers (Kendrick in 2012; Babyface Ray in 2025), a regular during the heyday of millennial tastemaker Soulection, and an apprentice of R&B jam history with a wide-ranging, formalist streak. His big break finally arrived last year: “Soft Spot,” a snazzy club throwback from 2023, went viral, and more songs from his back catalog have followed. On …it’s only about u if you think it is., he sets his sights on a different alternative, mining the trendy ’90s moodboard of Radiohead, Portishead, and the Smashing Pumpkins while maintaining his practiced cool. The results, though occasionally compelling, are a mixed bag.
Essential to the pull of “Soft Spot” was its director’s-cut music video, in which JMSN—a spindly, buzz-cut, sweaty white man—gyrates unapologetically to the song’s Atlanta-bass beat on a packed dancefloor, staring right through the camera. With a pitched-up falsetto that mirrors other hyperreal TikTok R&B hits, the song wants 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 speak for itself. JMSN’s youthful timbre can recall Justin Timberlake, so his quest to bring sexy back is intuitive, at least, and the seedy corners of Clinton-era MTV rock offer a good testing ground for sleaze. The single “Dirty Dog” goes for something like Trent Reznor circa “Piggy,” with visceral, self-debasing lyrics over an interlocked mesh of beats. But it sounds too slick to convince you of the flickering intensity of desire. “By sunrise, I automatically get turned on,” he sings, exuding the sense of someone going through the motions.
