I had no idea who Benson Boone was until I saw a bookmark with his name and face on it with one of my teachers. They highly recommended that I check him out. I have to admit, being more of a rap / hip-hop / rock sort of guy, I was initially skeptical. That was until I put in my two AirPods and played one of his newest songs titled “Slow It Down.”
The song started with angelic-like vocals masked over soft piano keys. Of course, I’ve heard similar sounding vocals from other artists in the past, but something felt different in this case. The first major “hook” of the song comes about a minute in, but something that felt special was how he slowly ramped up the intensity of the song until reaching that first hook. The melody that followed the hook stuck to a relatively similar pace, until it reached the minute fifty mark. At that point it started to ramp up again, building the intensity. The initial “hook” replayed again at that point; however, halfway through one of the verses, the vocals seemingly stopped and were followed by two drum crashes, then leading into by far the most intense part of the song.
The vocals and instrumentals were incredible, with aspects of rock thrown into it with the electric guitar and drums (not to mention he also plays both of those instruments as well as the piano).
The third and final “hook” was followed by the slowest vocals in the song, similar to the vocals in the beginning of the song. The final words of the song were “I’ll help you slow it down,” again in the slow tone. This really follows through with the title of the song. It was something extremely unique and almost genius. Not only did the lyrics follow through with the title, but even the pacing did as well. This made me realize that Benson Boone is truly a unique artist with incredible talent.
After listening to more of his music, I learned that his entire discography follows through with unique twists and styles. After digging deeper into his past life, I found out that he was a contestant on the famous “American Idol” TV show. Throughout the show he received many accolades from judges such as Katy Perry. She told Boone that she could see him winning the show. He made it to the top 24 before dropping out of the show. He claims that the reason he dropped out of the show was so he could pursue his independent music career. The show gave him the inspiration to fully pursue his career. He didn’t want to be known as the “guy from American Idol.” It turns out that his independent career was widely successful. His hit single “Beautiful Things” reached the number one spot on the Billboard Global 200 for multiple weeks in a row, and I could totally see “Slow It Down” charting too.
Overall I was blown away by Benson Boone. His unique style, songwriting skills, and multi-instrumental talent certainly cements him as one of the greatest rising stars in the industry, and I can’t wait to hear more from him.
