The most panned album of 2025? Benson Boone and his abysmal music are getting rinsed

Happy birthday, Benson Boone. I would like to wish you this because it is merely coincidence that I am penning this on the day of your celebrations, rather than a targeted takedown to spoil the day. But I fear if you are the kind of singer who reads the reviews of your records, you might not have been entering the revelry with much song in your heart. The heart in question of course being American Heart, the second album by Benson Boone that currently sits as the second worst reviewed album of the entirety of 2025 that isn’t the Will Smith one. It has a woeful score of 43 on Metacritic, but one scroll of the Benson Boone TikTok account suggests he’s totally unphased by the fact he has received the most scathing Pitchfork review I’ve potentially ever read. Benson Boone might not be bothered by his own backflipping antics, but social media is. Here’s why Benson Boone and his abysmal music are getting utterly dragged after he dropped the worst album I have heard yet in 2025.

And a little bit of exploration on how, in my view, he’s just getting it all totally wrong.

THESE BEAUTIFUL THINGSSSS THAT I’VE GOT

Beautiful Things, Benson Boone on breakthrough hit mode, was so ubiquitous last year you might even be forgiven for enjoying it. When, essentially, it is a glorified racket. A polished turd. He sort of won me round when Lana Del Rey brought him out and duetted on it with him. I see the merit. It did all start to become a bit of a mockery when that Genius video dropped of him breaking the sound barrier in ways not seen since Gabbie Hanna did it.

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But where does one go when they have a huge year with a truly massive song and a notorious reputation for revealing jumpsuits and doing a lot of flips? It appears one decides to make the most confused and truly dreadful album imaginable.

What is happening here… 

Enter, American Heart: The extremely confusing sophomore Benson Boone album and one of the worst things I’ve ever heard and seen. It’s a multi sense attack of misery, both visually and in ear. Benson Boone has proudly stood for nothing politically, and yet to have such an Americana album cover in the age of Donald Trump is certainly a choice. I would suggest it was perhaps ironic, but he doesn’t have the artistic chops for that. Even Lana Del Rey, not to bang on about her, firmly retired the Americana imagery in her visuals after Trump won his first term. What’s going on?

Is this a Springsteenian album of Americana music? No, it’s merely a mess. The soulless songs on this album that Benson Boone warbles his way through are all over the place – no more so than Mystical Magical. It is a song so terrible that I shudder to think of him singing “Moonbeam ice cream / taking off your blue jeans / dancing at the movies / Because it feels so mystical, magical”. It is a song that takes everything you love about a Harry Styles song and distorts it into a manner that feels uncanny, like a horror film version of it. Everything sounds a bit off kilter and frightening. It is music to drive yourself clinically insane to. He is meant to sound showy and grand, but comes off like a Marvel villain at their most deranged.

He’s the internet’s punching bag right now

no one:
benson boone: pic.twitter.com/3WsOklh8xP

— JB 🐻✨🍉 (@JBfromDC89) June 21, 2025

You don’t have to look very hard on a social media algorithm to stumble upon a Benson Boone pasting. Everything about him is up for a lashing – but mostly the deep lack of artistry and direction. Is he Freddie Mercury? Is he Harry Styles? Is he deep white boy guitar music? He’s sort of all of it and none of it. He is, put simply, a racket.

Benson Boone and Demi Lovato should collab to create the loudest song you’ve ever heard

— Erika Jayne Updates (@zachsmitty) June 21, 2025

Can he be saved?

Look. I can shout til the cows come home that Benson Boone is making the worst music, not just with this album but generally too. His fans will not listen, and that’s fine. Benson Boone is charismatic, handsome and a vocalist. The flips, too, I’m sure could be of some form of pop star use in the right hands.

Benson Boone, if you’re listening. Happy birthday, friend. Give Jack Antonoff a call. Send Rostam a DM. Something. Lock in with a producer, and get some vision. Look at Addison Rae – a TikTok laughing stock who has successfully defied the odds, gained respect and became a star. You can do it! You just have to want to do it. Maybe next year.

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