Benson Boone, former “American Idol” candidate and current American singer-songwriter from Monroe, Washington, has climbed Billboard’s Hot 100 multiple times with tracks like “Beautiful Things,” “Slow It Down,” “Ghost Town” and “In The Stars.” Although he started his music career only three years ago, Boone has steadily gained a massive following on Instagram, Spotify and TikTok. The success of his first single, “Ghost Town,” with over 350,000,000 listens on Spotify, has snowballed into his current fame . Finally, after years of releasing singles and months of teasing his audience with new songs, Boone has released his debut album, “Fireworks & Rollerblades,.”
The album opener is ironically called “Intro,” which has a Disney-esque sound to it. The track sets a nostalgic and innocent tone for the album with the use of a radio-crackle sound to cover his voice. However, “Intro” quickly ramps up the tempo, forcefully transitioning from purely sweet to tastefully aggressive.
“Do you believe there is a life / Where it’s just you and me and I? / We don’t need to wait, we don’t need a sign / It’s only you and me and I”
These questions and beliefs are central throughout Boone’s songs. It seems as if he is hoping to find closure through music.
The second song, “Be Someone,” transitions smoothly from “Intro” whilst staying in the same key (A major), but doubles the tempo. The intro has a similar feel to the intro of “Firework” by Katy Perry. However, distinguishing itself from “Firework,” “Be Someone” is about the romantic desire to be that special someone’s person they can depend on.
“Didn’t know how much I would love Santa Barbara / Never driven up, but I know that it’s gotta be so beautiful / If that’s where you were born”
Immediately, the first verse of the song teleports you to the California coast, driving with your hands out of the window, wind blowing through the strands of your hair. A great summer song, “Be Someone” replicates the same feelings of being in love with sunny skies and cloudless weather.
Returning to the nostalgia of the opening track, Boone repeats the same questions from “Intro,” making “Be Someone” a continuation of the first song. To these questions, he answers:“From time to time, you give me the smallest look / Behind your eyes, and, baby, it’s almost like you need someone / I promise I can be someone.”
The third song, “Slow It Down,” is one that Boone teased heavily on TikTok. Usually, when an artist teases a song, they release only the best part of the song, but sometimes that hypes up that certain snippet of the song and puts down the rest when the full song comes out. Unfortunately, for “Slow It Down,” the teased outro to the song was indeed the best part of it, rendering the rest graciously mediocre, comparatively. If only, though, the song was not teased, the entire song would be seen in a better light.
The fifth song, “Cry,” was another song that he teased, however the effect was fortunately opposite to “Slow It Down.” The rest of “Cry” is just as good as the teased chorus: “Cry, cry / Go ahead and ruin someone else’s life / Cry, cry / Go bug somebody else, so I can sleep at night.”
In producing this song, he made the effective choice to cut himself and his bleakly played piano off. “I tried to hide it through the silence while I played along / I’m welling up behind my eyelids when I’m holding on / To the rage, so badly I hate it / And I wish that all of–”
This created a bit of confusion amongst his listeners, which led to the angsty introduction of an electric guitar and its accompanying drumbeat.
With this rock-like style, Boone throws away the somber tone that the song initially held and creates something much more powerful. Leading up to the venge-ridden chorus is a more self-pitying verse with an abrupt close: “Mmm, you’re more narcissistic than anybody in Hollywood / You’re not a misfit, don’t keep sayin’ you’re misunderstood / I’m tired, oh, I’m so tired, oh.”
With Boone’s stylistic choices, frequent octave changes and simple instrumentals, “Cry” might be one of the best songs on the album.
“My Greatest Fear,” the ninth song on the tracklist, is one of the more emotional songs on “Fireworks & Rollerblades.” The song explains exactly what the title says: Boone’s greatest fears.
“Oh, I’m terrified of the day that I die / I’ll lie there all alone, no flowers on my bones / All the things that I’ve been afraid to lose / My greatest fear of all is losing you”
He touches upon death and loneliness, mainly the thought of having to be alone for eternity. Being buried together is one thing, but loving together is another. Boone created this whirlwind of a song out of fear of facing such eternal loneliness and it has touched his audience’s hearts. Natalie, on Twitter, says, “why did benson boone write ‘my greatest fear’ omg sobbing.”
Interestingly, the end of “My Greatest Fear” encompasses an impressive guitar riff and solo that sounds similar to that of “Sky Full of Stars” by Coldplay. Nevertheless, the riff played fits the tone entirely.
Boone had tremendous success; many hits in the Top 100 charts and even reaching almost 60,000,000 listeners on Spotify. For this being his first album, his future seems brighter than the stars. Until the next album, Boone can expect his listeners to be hooked onto “Fireworks & Rollerblades” for years to come.
Rating: 4.25/5