Songs for Young Lovers

The singer’s palette expands to include Britpop and bossa nova. Johnny Orlando is the rare artist who can be over a decade into his musical career and still title an album Songs for Young Lovers without joking. On his second full-length album, the former child YouTube cover-song star—now 23—continues to pursue a more sophisticated musical vision while retaining his essential starry-eyed innocence. Unlike many viral-to-IRL pop phenoms, Orlando is willing to ease off the vocal histrionics to just soak in a vibe: “Get Me High” taps into the dreamy post-Britpop comedown sound of early Coldplay, “Slow and Steady” sees him getting swallowed up by a majestic glam-rock guitar solo, and “The Crowd” sees him coasting on a psychedelic Beatles groove. And like his one-time idol Justin Bieber, Orlando now prefers to deliver his R&B devotionals in an intimate, off-the-cuff fashion, with the low-key charmer “Emilia” dripping in SWAG style. He closes the record with the self-explanatory “Johnny Bossa Nova,” a Brazil-bound lullaby that’s emblematic of a seasoned artist who is still just beginning to explore his potential.