Mickey Blue: A Man In Love (EP)

Mickey Blue is an R&B singer-songwriter who we can safely say is not a novice. With only one EP under his belt, the Toronto-born artist has already performed at the famous Pemberton Music Festival alongside known acts like Pearl Jam, J. Cole, Miguel and Anderson Paak, and is a part of a musical collective called We Are The School. On his five-track debut, A Man In Love, Mickey introduces himself as a passionate, hopeless romantic.

The EP’s opener We Just Be is easily the record’s catchiest offering. Riding on a sparse beat, Mickey unleashes all his infatuation and puts in a sugary, chorus to make the track stick in your head. The next track Dahlin, on the other hand, switches to an energetic dance vibe. Very noticeably, a lot of the EP’s brilliance attributes itself to the production by Benstar (Benny Liang). We see Benny at his strongest on the last track, Picture Perfect, where the dreamy, psychedelic air that he builds strongly reminds of Frank Ocean’s latest album, Blond.

The one thing, however, that A Man In Love makes clear immediately is that Mickey is not a fan of subtlety, at least lyrically. “Be my ice-cream sundae, would you be my candycane” goes a line from We Just Be, and another, “If I put you up on Youtube, you’ll get a billion views” on All Ours, All Hours. The corniness, it seems, is a part of Mickey’s aesthetic, and lends a light-heartedness to his blazing passion.