They say you can’t go home again. After a few years away from the place that raised you, what used to just click no longer seems to fit. Did “home” change? Did you? With emotive vocals and heart-on-sleeve lyrics, alt-pop-rock artist MICO, 23, tackles these coming-of-age queries on his genre-jumping debut LP. When the lights turn on captures the Filipino-Canadian singer and songwriter’s path from bedroom upstart to “internet hometown hero” to whatever comes next.
“Last year was crazy,” says MICO (real name Miguel Veloso). He means it both ways. There were incredible highs as he inked a major label deal with Columbia Records, headlined sold-out tours across the U.S. and Europe, and flew out to Los Angeles to record at the home of writer, producer, and pal Mickey Brandolino. But there were lows, too. “I was going through a breakup while only spending about three months at home all year. Every time I went back, things would be exactly the same, but feel so different. I suddenly had this worldview that didn’t align with anyone else’s. That’s why every song on this album is so personal — I was processing it all.”
When the lights turn on is a racing collection of hook-driven tracks that pull sticky nostalgia from the best and brightest of 2000s/2010s pop-punk, while mixing in modern and unexpected strains that underscore the manic swings of a career that’s about to go supernova. The tracklist bursts with bittersweet revelations, as on the lead single “DREAMBOY.” The hyperpop-steeped banger evokes PC Music’s bubblegum chaos as MICO sings of trying to date someone he’d met online, only to discover that being seen doesn’t always translate to being understood. “She’d seen a bunch of my stuff on social media, so she had this preconceived image of what I was supposed to be,” he says. “For me to be an actual human really sent things off the rails.”
Long before he had his first Canadian radio hit, MICO was a star in his own home. Born and raised in Toronto, he was the fourth of five siblings. His father filled the house with ’80s pop hits by Michael Jackson and The Police, and when guests came over, the family encouraged 6-year-old MICO to hop on the karaoke — he didn’t object. “I never thought about doing anything else in my life, because singing was the thing that was most fun to me,” he says. As a tween, he dove into the brazenly emotional music that would shape his path most — era-defining acts like 5 Seconds of Summer, Fall Out Boy, and The All-American Rejects. When he got his hands on a guitar, he taught himself the chords to their hits by watching their finger placements in music videos.
The screen became a two-way conduit as a teenage MICO worked his way into “Discord’s Got Talent” events, hopping between servers and performing cover songs to online communities. As he cultivated a loyal following, MICO pivoted to writing and self-releasing originals, starting with 2019’s “who do you love,” a striking mix of personal vulnerability and musical confidence. After graduating high school in 2020, he used a gap year to start posting songs on TikTok. It was time wisely spent — today, MICO has nearly 1 million loyal “amicos” on the platform. Over a series of EPs leading to his aptly titled Internet hometown hero, which got a 2025 deluxe reissue, MICO found his own path back to his influences, forging an original, pop-infused alternative sound.
As MICO’s creativity carried him from URL spaces to IRL stages, his work also grew increasingly personal. Viral bops like 2022’s “cut my hair” found him struggling with maintaining his identity amid romantic ruin, while 2024’s streaming hit “HOMESICK” sets the scene for the disconnect that fuels When the lights turn on. On new song “Like you mean it,” he pleads with a partner to face the facts of their uneven love: “You can’t call it healing, running from a feeling / I can’t be the only good thing that you’ve got / So love me like you mean it, not like you need it.” But on the next track, “Do it all again,” he’s the one chasing a connection that’s doomed to fail.
But sometimes the rift gets closed, as on “Your favorite flowers,” which embodies a sweetly teenaged suburban intimacy with its gentle acoustics and story of two best friends working out their feelings for each other amid major life shifts. “There was a brief moment where this friend and I started seeing each other, then everything fizzled out,” MICO says. “We hadn’t talked in a year, and then we reconnected. We didn't know where we stood anymore, but after having an intense conversation, it felt like at that moment, we had learned how to be true friends again.”
At other times, the messiness of youth simply takes over, resulting in glorious sonic mayhem. “WHY ARE YOU HERE” strikingly interlocks contemporary alt-pop with a tinge of feelings-first Y2K rap-rock as MICO tries to make sense of a mixed-message romance. He even drops a few electrifying bars on the explosive bridge before shifting into a yearning, radio-ready chorus. “I really wanted it to feel like you were racing through a room, trying to chase after somebody,” MICO says. “You’re bumping into people, it’s messy, loud, and just generally overwhelming.”
With MICO’s career taking off as quickly as the skittering beats that dance through so much of When the lights turn on, it’s understandable that he’s experiencing some whiplash. But, as it turns out, that highly personal tension has resulted in his most exuberant and relatable music to date. “The second you broaden your horizons, everything that you knew feels smaller. It’s hard to find comfort in it again,” says MICO. “But you have to learn how to move forward and become your own person. I just hope that in being honest about it, people can see themselves in that.”
