A Return to the Same, Bad Form: American Heart, Benson Boone
SCORE: 19/100
He somehow managed to make a track worse than 'Beautiful Things' (one of my most hated songs of all time) with 'Mr Electric Blue', and the entire album is... well, what you would expect from a Benson Boone album. He has the energy, that's for certain - but his need for speed and desperate attempts for style don't make up for the poor quality that the album ends up having. It seems like he's really trying; and his image is clearly something he's trying to fine-tune, but if he keeps fine-tuning the image he currently has, he may be doomed to a career full of poor-quality albums that will leave him with an even more infamous legacy.
It's never a good sign when an artist is only so well known because one of their songs is so abysmally bad it's become a sheer laughing stock, and this album just carries on what seems like tradition through making bad songs, with poor vocal work, bland, grating production, and 5th-grade lyricism, 'American Heart' is a genuinely painful album to sit through - and this isn't something I usually say about albums unless it's true.
I can't usually say an album has given me a headache, but this was the one to do it. I thought that 'Mystical Magical' (a song I don't entirely mind) would be a breath of fresh air after the agitating 'Mr Electric Blue' and 'Man In Me', but that song managed to be what gave me the headache. Boone's lyrics talk of love and relationships - but he talks about these topics like a 12-year-old boy rather than the adult he is; all through loud, poorly controlled vocals that range from cracking, whiny vocals (and not the good, controlled whining vocal type) to his infamous screaming that feels less like singing and more like him just yelling into the microphone; which would be, simply put, because he is.
Any moments that try to be genuinely emotional are overshadowed by Boone seemingly needing to explain himself - even on the most obvious of lines, he explains things like the fallout of a bad punchline. Despite some decent enough melodies, it all feels like something you would hear on a shopping trip on an already bad day - leading to the most headache inducing annoyance possible.
If you want a good dose of a headache and some of the worst music of the year, give Benson Boone a try.
Alternative title might as well be "Hootin' and Hollerin': The Album" with the amount Benson shouts and uses his voice in all of the wrong ways. The way he sings on track seven sounds like it's genuinely hurting him to do so, which makes me wonder... Um, Benson, is this a twelve-step thing? Nobody’s mad at you, honest. In fact, after listening to American Heart, we love you more than evs.
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