Los Angeles — Malcolm Todd is 22 with the whole world in front of him. At least, that’s what it feels like while sitting on the patio of his new house overlooking the windswept L.A. skyline on a recent afternoon. Inside the sparse, upscale abode, cardboard moving boxes are still scattered across the entryway, and his shelves lack ingredients. But when you walk up on his roof, a scenic view of his home city sprawls beneath Todd. In one corner, you can spot the Hogwarts Castle at Universal Studios, and the San Gabriel Mountains surround its lookout. It’s his first time living on his own, and while the new pad is adorned with Midcentury Modern furniture and eight guitars, almost everything else is a work in progress.

From TikTok to Major Labels

But that’s OK. The singer doesn’t mind being a work in progress. “You’re always learning and growing, and my music evolves with my personal life,” Todd said. “I think just growing up and taking more risks and being more open and having more perspective is where the biggest change has come.”

His new album, “Do That Again,” is out Friday. It’s his second album, but he’s been releasing music since 2022, during his senior year of high school. Raised in a Hollywood household, with a TV writer dad and hitmaking songwriter sister, Todd skipped college, hustled on TikTok, signed to Columbia and toured with Omar Apollo.

Blending Genres and Big Emotions

Malcolm Todd is a rising star with a sweet, lilting voice and a knack for intimate popcraft. But if you’re looking for the illusions of grandeur we often expect from rising pop people, look elsewhere. The L.A.-based singer-songwriter opened his self-titled 2025 debut worrying that he might not make it because he’s “not a Harry Styles” (one of the most memorable admissions of comparative career jitters since Pink told us she wasn’t as pretty as Britney a quarter century ago).

On “I Saw Your Face,” a gently insistent track from his new Do That Again, he offers “Life’s not a movie/I’m not a movie star.” But Todd wears his realism well, finding a nice mix between earnestly romantic and achingly self-aware. “I probably shouldn’t do it, but I’ll do it for the song,” he sings before throwing himself into what sounds like it might be an emotionally risky hookup on “Breathe,” as subtle bass bumps and lowkey Chic-guitar flecks stir up the mood.

Todd fits in with artists like Omar Apollo (who he’s toured with), Mk.Gee, and Steve Lacy, musicians who blissfully elide genres and excel at boiling big emotions down to the most human scale. His metier is bedroom pop that’s as influenced by indie confessionals as R&B valentines. “Jean Skirt” sets sweaty clothes-on-the-floor imagery to watery guitars; the brackish ballad “Free99” dreamily reflects on fading innocence; “Difficult Love” luxuriates in the only kind of love he seems to know over a plush hip-hop-tinged bounce.

Criticism and Controversy

I was introduced to Malcolm Todd’s music when he came up as a recommended “next track” on Spotify. At the time, I dismissed him as a bland TikTok bedroom pop artist. But after he was announced as the headliner for Dillo Day this year, I conducted a larger investigation, only to reach the same conclusion. Luckily for Todd — and unfortunately for me, his generic style is ideal for 2026: music streaming algorithms reward homogenous sound, and Gen Z fears deviance, mistaking laziness for authenticity.

To identify my gripes with Todd’s sound, let’s start with the singer’s most trending hit, “Earrings,” the opening track to his debut 2024 album “Sweet Boy.” The production is typical Todd: warm and smooth guitars and drums, with a hint of “lo-fi” background crackle. The song is characterized most by its hook, a note descension at the very beginning spanning four beats, sung with Todd’s signature mellow but angsty vocals. Uninteresting at best, and grating at worst — this repetitive hook can be found lurking at around the 1:30 mark of the album’s next track, “Roommates.”

Skip 25 seconds into the album’s third track, “On My Shoulder,” and, you guessed it, Todd’s pouty four-beat vocal hook arises once again. You get the point, but aspects of the riff can be found in tracks like “Mr. Incorrect” and “Concrete.” “Concrete” is on a later album, showing a disappointing lack of improvement or change. Putting Todd’s grating vocal quirk aside, as a whole, the singer’s vocal inflection rarely changes, if ever, throughout his discography. His withdrawn, vaguely emo tone comes off as uninspired and restrained. His songs consistently left me demanding: “Do something!”