80. Single Review of Click by Olivia Miceli

Originally published January 10th, 2025

About the Artist

It’s no secret that the British can produce music. Being a guy who grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, I know what it’s like to come from a community where everybody seems to play music. This comes with a number of positives and sometimes, can also bring about some deflating elements as well. On one hand, it’s pretty easy to find people to artistically connect with. There’s always an opportunity to hear great live music. So many people can relate with you.

On the other hand, in an effort to deploy their own marketability, independent musicians tend to create unspoken competitions with one another in an effort to stand out and achieve their own goals. This might limit attendance at our live performances and hurt traffic on social media or streaming sites. I can post a picture about my dog and get a hundred likes and turn around and post promotional things about an upcoming release and it might not get 10 views. This feeling can leave a sense of hopelessness for independent artists. It certainly has with me.

Doing Fifteen Minutes of Fame has given me the opinion that this competition is a distraction from the opportunity to hear truly great music. It has taught me to press play at every opportunity because I never know when I will find an artist that absolutely blows me away. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I started my January campaign and I got a submission from Olivia Miceli for a single she had scheduled to release on January 10th. 

Coming from Stoke-on-Trent, I imagine she is part of a community that is no stranger to independent artists who are trying to have their music heard. After hearing her music though, it would be a mistake to try to overlook what she is doing. 

2024 was a busy year for Olivia, as she released two singles and a two-song EP. First, in June, she dropped a piano ballad, The Chaos of Growing Up, an extraordinary piece of work that showcases a culmination of layered vocals, piano, strings, and other backing synths, that really strike an emotional match with the listener. The climax comes with a perfectly-timed key change at the end of the song. Her EP, Guys Like You!, released the following month, with the title track, Guys Like You!, a very upbeat pop track that showcases a diversity of accompanying instruments including guitars, synths, drums, and another example of very impressive layered vocals. The Chaos of Growing Up is the second song on this EP. Then, in October, she released her last single of the year; the synth-driven uptempo pop song, Green Eyed Monster. 

With such a strong representation of potential, Olivia has me eagerly anticipating what she has in store for 2025 musically. Fortunately, her listeners did not have to wait very long. 

About the Song

Click is a pop song by the English artist, Olivia Miceli. At just over two and a half minutes, it released on January 10th, 2025. Accompanied by a variety of instrument; acoustic guitar, piano, bass guitar, and drums, as well as a number of layered backing vocals, it features a dynamic vocal performance by Miceli. 

About the Music

Olivia Miceli is a very interesting artist because she navigates through a number of pop genres with ease. She could really be excellent in a number of genres. She actually reminds me of another pop artist I reviewed a few months ago, Menna. Like Menna, she has a particular tonal quality in her voice that could succeed in a style, like this, that is more acoustically driven but could also don well as a more pop-punk style. In fact, I could really hear this song as a pop punk song as well. Not saying it would be better, I’m simply saying I hear a lot of places the song can go, based off of Miceli’s vocal performance. Incidentally, there is another independent artist that I think shares this style. Myah, a California-based musician also has a very captivating sound that could operate well in half a dozen genres. 

Click is subtly uptempo, being driven by acoustic guitar and piano, which is supported by a very dynamic percussion part, using organic sounding drums. The bass guitar serves as an anchor; marrying the melody and percussion without being too showy. There are additional elements that fill the sound spaces.

The pinnacle of the song is absolutely the vocal performances. Lead, backing, and layered vocals really help this song transition from one element to another freely. There’s not too much as far as effects are concerned on the vocals, but they are used from time to time. For instance, Miceli uses a “telephone” effect at one point in the first part of the first chorus.

I love how the backing vocals are panned and have different levels as to how they’re addressed in the song. It sounds like a chorus group that is physically scattered in a room, with the listener standing in the center of it all, which is delightfully complex. 

Olivia Miceli’s vocal lead is nothing short of brilliant. There is this smooth, silky tone to her voice that I could listen to all day long. Her diction is very clear and precise. She is able to sing several words rapidly and deliver a performance that is very clear to understand. She also has a very smooth transition into her upper register that she performs through no break. Miceli might be one of the best vocalists I’ve reviewed. 

About the Lyrics
So, I asked Olivia to tell me a little bit about the lyrics behind Click. Here is what she said: Click is “an indie rock take on the social media age we are living in and our dependence on technology and clicks on posts.” Lyrically, she achieves narrating this perspective with cleverly worded lines that address the topic directly.
“Your clique isn’t a motive, I just want to be involved in it. To get my picture liked by a prom queen would be nice. If you hopped into the click stream or maybe took a deep dive into the kind of songs I write, I wouldn’t care so much about the clicks on the screen, or the technology, that I live my by. Oh wouldn’t that be nice. To have a connection that’s real, not just a networking deal. A friend not following for likes. Oh wouldn’t that be nice.”
First of all, I love how she uses to meanings of the same word, incorporating both “clique” and “click” into the same verse. It’s a technique that’s pretty much heard in hip hop and not done all that well anywhere else, but Miceli delivered a flawless execution. I want to say again how extremely impressed I am by Miceli’s ability to sing so many lyrics and do it in a way that is able to be heard clearly throughout the entire song. Her diction is like a super power.
“But we live our lives by clicks past high school. It’s still cool to wanna be that girl and I’ve got away with it for this long but I’m trying to keep with demand. This curve is slipping. It’s hard to resist when people choose what they like and go ahead and click.”
Lyrically, this song isn’t a story as much as it is an observation, as Miceli stated in her explanation of Click. She has proven here that she is a very talented lyricist.
Final Thoughts
As I’ve gotten to know Olivia Miceli’s music, I’m reminded of another Olivia; Olivia Rodrigo. She also has that dynamic capability of artists like Billie Eilish. I think Miceli’s music as just as marketable as those artists and her music would definitely be categorized in similar fashion to theirs.
I love how she showcases so much variety in just one song. In other songs of hers, she shows diversity throughout each of her releases. Click is the first song that really shows her range of talent in different elements of the single performance. 
In conclusion, there are musicians everywhere. It’s a form of art that has been around since the civilization of man. Its fabric is woven in all of us. Every musician has an incredible story to tell. There is no exception here. In fact, Olivia Miceli’s voice stands out about the crowd. To learn that the song we hear was entirely produced by Miceli in her bedroom is just another amazing fact that adds to the lore of this undiscovered musician who has every bit of what it takes to be a breakout artist. She performs with the same emotion as Alanis Morissette did when she recorded Jagged Little Pill in her apartment, sometimes placing microphones underneath her pillows to create percussive sounds. Or when Justin Vernon, in response to his band breaking up, his relationship ending, and battling health conditions, decided to isolate himself in his father’s cabin in Wisconsin, and decided he wanted to experiment with layers of falsetto vocal parts and incorporate them into the ambient folk sound that shot him to stardom. 
Olivia Miceli is talented. Significantly so. One by one, people are finding her and discovering this. I can see her doing great and wonderful things.
Make sure you like, follow, and subscribe to all of Olivia Miceli’s platforms:Spotify Profile
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