Michigander seeks pop perfection on debut album
Now based in Nashville, Jason Singer's first album comes after a decade of refining his brand of indie pop.
Unless you’ve followed every step of Jason Singer’s recording career, it might be hard to believe he’s releasing his debut album today.
Recording as Michigander since his early 20s, Singer has steadily assembled a catalog of four single-friendly EPs over the past 10 years, earning him sets at festivals like Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, steady regional radio play and guest appearances on songs from collaborators like Manchester Orchestra and Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba.
Now 32, Singer and Michigander flew south, relocating to Nashville, Tennessee, to reach a milestone he’s long been eyeing: The release of his band’s full length debut album.
“It feels like I’ve worked my whole life to get to this point,” Singer said, speaking with Radio Amor while on tour in Tampa, Florida. “It took forever to get 12 songs that I love. On the other side, it feels like my most authentic and ‘true to me’ piece of work.”
On Michigander, Singer says he’s most proud that he believes he was able to capture some of the cornerstones of what traditionally make an album good: A record with two distinctive sides that still feels cohesive, at times veering away from some of the more traditional pop song structures on the second side. While it’s a bit more politically-leaning, it stays true to Singer’s more traditional takes on experiences with anxiety, growing older and the pitfalls of being a people pleaser.
Sonically inspired, in part, by some of the headphone-friendly, sophisticated indie rock and pop of the early 2000s like TV on the Radio and Blur, Singer said, the album also has some tinges of atmospheric, pretty guitar that feel reminiscent of X&Y-era Coldplay.
Where Singer would write around eight songs to fill a five-song EP, he came up with around 40 or 50 songs that were whittled down to the final 12-song debut album.
“My one wish for the record is people can sit down and just listen to it from top to bottom, in a conscious, intentional listening experience,” Singer said.
True to his band name, Singer was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, spending his entire childhood in the state. Adopted at three weeks old, he grew up in the Midland area, where he began playing in coffee shops and any other small venues like church basements that hosted live music, later inspiring the name of his first self-released EP.
He began making music after moving to Kalamazoo, later landing in Detroit for a brief stop before moving to Nashville nearly three years ago. Dating back to his debut 2016 single Nineties that earned him immediate traction with millions of streams, Singer has proven mostly incapable of writing a song that isn’t catchy. That trend continued over the decade that unfolded, with each release upping the ante in production and songwriting.
Highlights along the way have included Better, a pandemic era anthem from the band’s 2021 Everything Will Be Ok Eventually EP that might most immediately strike at what Singer does well. Heart on his sleeve, Singer professes wanting to better himself despite feeling many of the constraints and anxieties we all experienced during those years.
2023’s It Will Never Be The Same found Singer and his touring band of Jake LeMond (guitar), Aaron Senor (drums) and Connor Robertson (bass) enlisting Manchester Orchestra to beef up catalog standout In My Head, one of several exercises in channeling catchy indie and alternative rock through anthemic guitars and crashing choruses on the EP. While his debut album mostly positions Singer’s brand of naturally hooky pop music front and center, it has distinctive pieces and isn’t just a collection of single-worthy tunes he was able to assemble.
“I remember when I would get a CD and put it in my CD player, and I would listen to the whole thing,” Singer said. “That's honestly what I'm most proud of, is like, it feels like a side A and a side B, and at the same time, one big, cohesive body of work.”
Michigander finds Singer taking some calculated risks, including opener Broadcast, his first foray into what you might call a political song.
Singer says it’s a satirical look at the many who hold the worldview of always putting America - or their version of it - before others. It also takes aim at the general anxiety-inducing feeling of every day being like a show for all to see via social media, Singer said. I’m an American dreaming/I’ll get you hooked on a feeling/and tell you what to believe in/don’t ever look away,” he sings on the “of the moment” opener.
“Like, life is a show, and the broadcast is our world,” Singer said. “Everything feels phony and fake and weird and like, 'How is this real?' But it's also like, in America, I mean not everybody, but a lot of people feel like we have this right of like, 'We are the best in the world, and we matter more than everybody else' and 'America first,' and all that stuff … It's kind of like poking fun at that mindset.”
Even if Broadcast is a bit of a surprise in diverging from Singer’s more traditional song topics, it’s a catchy and effective way to open Michigander in an age where you need to get the audience’s attention immediately, showing he is willing to show another side of himself as a songwriter. It comes with experience and with knowing you can’t hesitate to speak out during times of great confusion in society, Singer said.
“I think it's just important to me,” he said. “I just feel like it's so insane to have like a platform and not say anything.”
After Broadcast, you’re hit with a barrage of late 90’s/early-2000s quality pop rock singles, including a few fans will already be familiar with like the Billy Joel/Spoon shuffle of Giving Up (and a song Radio Amor included among its top 10 songs of 2024). Another advance “single” Breaker Box leans into Coldplay/The National territory behind a pulsating synth and steady piano build. It’s a mid tempo standout that shows off some of the production results Singer was seeking behind an earworm of a melody. Throughout the album there are melodies and hooks and all the stuff fans of Michigander have come to expect; maybe just a little nicer sounding. A tad more sophisticated and diverse in arrangements, with the help of producer Jeremy Lutito.
The latter half of the album finds the band cooling off at times in exploring different pop ideas behind the piano (with the exception of standout rocker Socialite), leading to intriguing results on introspective ballads like Important, with Singer’s vocals channeling the type of timbre you’d expect from Amen Dunes’ Damon McMahon.
“I got a piano … that's kind of it,” Singer said of the instrument’s increased role on the album. “My wife's grandma gave us her old piano, and we had it delivered down to Nashville from Illinois, and got it tuned up and I just wrote a bunch of songs on the piano. And that's kind of where those songs came from, in a way.”
While Important was originally intended to be more of a rocker, Singer found himself gravitating toward using it in a more restrained version he had played on piano before a rehearsal session. Album closer Hair, on the other hand, was Singer’s first successful experiment with new microphones he purchased, he said, with both being examples of having time and space in the studio with full-length album ambitions.
“There's just more space in a full length and so it kind of feels like I can do these two kind of different songs for myself, and they fit and they flow well,” Singer said.
Ultimately, Singer said he simply wants what many artists want in return for his first album: That people give it the time to sit down and listen to.
“It would be crazy for me to say, like, I hope it doesn't blow up and pop off and connect with people, but I already feel like it's a success because it's done and I think it's really good,” Singer said. “I have no qualms with it, and I'm just so proud of it. I can’t wait for people to hear it.”
Michigander is out today on Totally Normal Records. The band is on tour playing the new material. You can check out dates here.