Diverse Pop Scores on “Time” by @MikkyEkko

MIKKY EKKO, Time

It’s been a long time coming for the 30 year-old singer/songwriter who came to our attention after co-writing and playing on Rihanna’s “Stay”, but Time is here to stay!  It’s a formidable debut for the Louisiana-born singer and sets the bar pretty high early on in the year for other solo male singers.  I got thoroughly wrapped up in the lead-off single “Smile”, which placed at #7 on my year end list for 2014.  There are several possible follow-ups here, and there are a couple of ‘audio timelapse’ videos for both “U” and the ferocious “Riot” (both below), one of my favourites.  Why do I visualize a huge choreographed video for this one? 🙂 No one song sounds like another, and you’ll even hear an R&B-styled vocal on “U” that is quite different from the one he provided on last year’s “Stranger” by Chris Malinchak.  It’s all beautiful lyrical pop, with “Riot” about the most atypical of the songs.  Others to check out include the commanding, prophetic opener “Watch Me Rise”, “Loner” (the vocal here reminds me of Ryan Tedder), “Pull Me Down”, and “Burning Doves”, another melodic song with a great story attached.  I’m hoping Mikky will do his own club tour this year after opening for Alt-J for several dates last year.  His “Time” has come and it will serve him (and us) very well indeed.