Under The Streetlights Michael Marcagi

• 1 Move On 03:11
• 2 Don't Include Me (American Dream) (48 kHz) 02:57
• 3 Unlocks Me 03:24
• 4 I Should Know Better 03:33
• 5 Loose Ends 03:12
• 6 Falling 03:12
• 7 Thanksgiving Eve 03:13
• 8 Anna Lee 03:07
• 9 Rocksteady (feat. Jade Bird) 03:13
• 10 Holding Onto Something 03:52
• Total Runtime 32:54

Info zu Under The Streetlights

Multi-Platinum certified singer-songwriter Michael Marcagi releases his highly anticipated debut solo album, entitled "Under The Streetlights".

Building on massive overseas success, Marcagi is also preparing to embark on his biggest EU/UK headline tour yet, kicking off next week, January 20, in Lisbon, Portugal, and wrapping up on February 21 at the prestigious Roundhouse in London. He’ll then return stateside in time to perform at Stagecoach Music Festival in April and join Sam Barber on his 2026 American Route Tour. Click HERE for tickets and information.

Amidst all that momentum, “Don’t Include Me (American Dream)” is a welcome slowdown — a moment for reflection as Marcagi looks back at a relationship that seemed like destiny until it suddenly wasn’t. Over acoustic strum that carries him from folk-pop intimacy into a sweeping full-band sound, he paints a picture of the domestic bliss that slipped through his fingers: “I drive by the house, from what I can tell, now you’re living there with somebody else / Now I can see, your American dream don’t include me.” In the end, though he keeps driving, “’cause it’s only fair for you to move on like I was never even there.”

As Marcagi explains, ‘“Don’t Include Me (American Dream)”’ is a song about trying to move on when it seems impossible. About the feeling of wanting to go back but knowing you can’t change anything. Accepting who you are and moving forward when all things are drawing you back to a person or a place.”

It’s a contrasting companion to Marcagi’s recently released single, “Unlocks Me,” a joyous tribute to the curative power of love that Holler. dubbed a “dose of sonic sunshine,” and which will also appear on Under The Streetlights.

The two new tracks are his first new music since last summer’s “Humbling,” a co-write with GRAMMY-winning songwriters Amy Allen (Leon Bridges, Olivia Rodrigo) and Dan Wilson (Chris Stapleton, Taylor Swift) that finds Marcagi considering the fact that his friends are home with babies while he’s out on the road chasing a dream. Each of his songs reflect his rich penchant for crafting timeless and relatable storytelling. Marcagi imbues his personal and poetic lyrical ability to express his own midwestern experience in everything he does.

Last year, he fulfilled a lifelong aspiration by making his Grand Ole Opry debut at OPRY 100 in honor of the institution’s series of centennial celebrations. And that followed the early 2025 release of his globally acclaimed Midwest Kid EP, including standouts like “Wish I Never Met You,” co-written by and featuring Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers, and “Flyover State,” which he brought to Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He closed out 2025 by joining Jonas Brothers onstage in Jacksonville, Florida, to perform his breakout hit “Scared to Start,” and he enters 2026 with that same song achieving RIAA-certified 2x Platinum status.

“Scared to Start” was Marcagi’s second solo release ever, and it caught fire with fans around the world, climbing to #5 on Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, scoring him his national television debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and going Gold, Platinum, and multi-Platinum in multiple countries abroad. Fittingly about taking risks and putting it all on the line, the song has racked up more than 1 billion global streams, 2.2 billion TikTok views, 236 million Instagram Reel views, and 24 million YouTube views.

Building on his breakthrough with 2024’s raw and bruisingly honest American Romance EP, Marcagi immediately got to touring, quickly proving his mettle on outings here and overseas whether headlining, teaming up with the likes of The Lumineers, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, and The Red Clay Strays, or making his mark at festivals like Louisville’s Bourbon & Beyond and Noah Kahan’s Out of the Blue.

Michael Marcagi

Michael Marcagi
Cincinnati singer-songwriter Michael Marcagi's ascent is a homegrown success story. With a career built largely through grassroots social media support, the folk-rock singer has demonstrated that listeners are hungry for earnest storytelling rooted in age-old American musical traditions. Marcagi announced himself with "The Other Side," a depiction of the claustrophobia of small-town life, but it was his cinematic tribute to taking a leap of faith — "Scared to Start" — that pushed his TikTok view counts into the millions. In a few short weeks, he had built a legion of eager fans and secured a record deal with just two songs to his name. His debut Warner Records EP, American Romance, expands on that promise, highlighting the timeless sound and engaging sense of emotional truth that has made Marcagi's music so immediately compelling.

Though he grew up playing and singing in rock bands, Marcagi always struggled to envision himself as a solo artist. However, his persistent desire to record some of his sparer acoustic songs — ones he rarely dared to perform in public — eventually inspired him to try his luck. Dipping into his savings, he trekked to upstate New York, decamping to a studio outside of Woodstock to work with producer David Baron (Lana Del Rey, The Lumineers, Shania Twain). The two assembled a team of crack musicians to bolster Marcagi's intimate and unvarnished guitar and vocal performances, employing folk and bluegrass instrumentation, cavernous rock drums, and luxuriant vocal harmonies.

All of the songs Marcagi recorded — including the five on American Romance — mix authentic storytelling with sadness, frustration, and ennui. Avoiding confessional outpourings, he turns his experiences growing up in the Midwest into vignettes exploring the cracks in human relationships. By his own account, coming from a largely conservative and religious town meant that a tightly prescribed set of family values were passed onto him. The EP's title track explores this directly, sketching scenes from an archetypal failed marriage of teen sweethearts.

"There are all these familial norms you have to fall into," Marcagi explains. "I just watched a lot of my friends fall into that trap of getting married really young and then watching it falling apart before they are even thirty."

Even at his most unsparing, Marcagi is careful not to pass judgment on the decisions of the characters in his songs. If the songs on American Romance carry any message, it is that there is no "right way" to get through life, and that we learn something we can use from every relationship. This message comes through pointedly "In the Light," which Marcagi claims he connects with more than any other song he's written. The defiant stomp-along anthem is carried by an infectious mandolin and piano motif and disarmingly direct lyrics: "So fuck all you bought, it ain't what you got/And be who you need and not what you're taught/You know from all this pain you cannot hide/And stand there in the light."

Marcagi never undermines his listeners or takes them for granted. "Audiences are usually smarter than the musicians they are listening to," he says. For him, there's plenty of evidence that modern listeners of all generations understand and connect with specificity and sophistication in songwriting. This is part of why he aspires to remain as open and approachable as possible — in both his music and his public persona. If what has happened in his career during the past year is any indication, he may be on to something.

"I want people to feel like they know me," Marcagi says. "I've never really connected to that mysterious rock band thing — four blurry faces in a field where you don't know who the guys are. I don't want to hide."

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet