In the wreckage of today’s landscape of bad news, pleasure can come from even the most unexpected places, which is why I’m as surprised as anyone to find that I’m rooting for Benson Boone. I might even really like him. On Friday, June 20, Boone’s third album, American Heart, was released, and I found myself pleasantly, shockingly, and bizarrely thrilled by his music. Overnight, I became a Booner.
Prior to a few months ago, all I knew about the mustachioed crooner was that he’s ex-Mormon, he sometimes inexplicably does Freddy Mercury cosplay, and — who could forget — he does a flip (sometimes several!) at every live performance or red carpet he’s on. The gist of his appeal was apparent: His voice is good, he’s handsome enough, and there’s enough setting him apart from the other male pop stars. Listening back through his first two albums, Fireworks & Rollerblades and Walk Me Home … (ellipses his own), I felt there was little to grasp on to or enjoy. The songs, while well-produced, were too serious and slow. Boone had feelings he had to process through his music. He literally has songs called “Cry” and “Slow It Down.” In the latter, he sings, “Only girl that’s never left me is my mother.” Right, well, that’s nice for Benson, but I’m here for a good time, not a therapy session.
Boone’s new album, American Heart, depicts the singer shirtless with an American flag behind him like a beach towel. Already, I’m laughing: That’s Benson Boone, a real-deal American. The album’s first track, “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else,” tells the story of a chance encounter with someone from the singer’s past. In lieu of wimpy melodramatics, Boone picks up the pace — the drums thudding along like the soundtrack to an aerobics-workout video — and the fun. His repeated “Benny, don’t do it” refrain is a charming look inside his psyche, or at least it tells us that he thinks of himself as “Benny.” His inner turmoil, set against the pounding backbone of the song, makes it all the more fun. This is a panic attack for his narrator, but a dance number for the rest of us.
American Heart, at its best, conjures feelings of other fun-forward pop albums: Charlie Puth’s Voicenotes (though less horny) or Bruno Mars’s 24K Magic (before it was hack enough for “Uptown Funk” to make its way into live-action Lilo & Stitch) or One Direction’s Midnight Memories (which also drew on Queen’s music). He has some absurd turns of phrase — the inescapable “You feel like moonbeam, ice cream, taking off your blue jeans” in “Mystical Magical” — that exploit how goofy and earnest his music is. In an album full of yearning, Boone also makes space for the extremely dull “Momma Song” and new single “Mr Electric Blue,” which is not a “Mr. Blue Sky” riff so much as it is a song about being an all-American type of guy who is working hard and is inspired by his dad. The video features him “clapping back” at his haters who think all he does is backflip and write bad lyrics. He dances, he mugs, he hangs out of the window of an ice-cream truck. Boone is having the time of his life with this — why shouldn’t the rest of us?
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We have a dearth of fun pop stars these days, especially the male ones. The Jonas Brothers are cancelling concerts, Shawn Mendes is missing in action, Alex Warren is doing bits on Instagram while singing the world’s most boring radio song — it’s time for a little levity. Boone promises all of that and then some with pop songs that are silly and loving and just horny enough to justify his being shirtless on the album cover. He puts in the work, whether it’s in his music or his flips. When he’s out there, parading around in his mustache and sequins, telling us how much he loves his mom, I believe it and I like it. He’s not asking us to take him seriously; he’s asking us to make sure he doesn’t bonk his head when he does a flip. Sure, American Heart’s ballads are a snooze, but the upbeat tracks more than make up for it if you let them. The final track, which is the title track with the word “Young” tacked on, is an ode to, well, himself. “I don’t mind if this is gonna take a million days,” he sings in “Mystical Magical, “I know you’ll come around to me eventually.” He was right. Thankfully, it didn’t take a million days — more like 100.
