Is there anything better than being overplayed?

Nope.

Can you imagine being Benson Boone right now? (Nice name, by the way. Immediate Boone’s Farm blackout flashbacks enter my mind). He’s got a No. 1 song, he writes and performs his own tracks, and he’s only 21. Oh, and he’s accomplished all this after having withdrawn as a contestant from American Idol! (Remember that other Benson, the one from the ’80s who went from being butler to Governor? Yep, I know what I’m naming my son!)

After being spotted by Imagine Dragons lead singer Dan Reynolds, Boone nailed down a recording contract and label after taking the route so many are taking to make it to the top today – by posting music to TikTok and building a social media audience. What a world, right? The artists and listeners have soooo much power today. An artist like Boone can put his stuff up on TikTok (or YouTube or Instagram), build an audience, then leverage that into a recoding career – for money! It used to be the record labels that decided who could be popular, who could be stars, in “partnership” (hehe) with terrestrial radio. But today, you have to basically become a star first (a TikTok “star”) and then the labels will show interest and elevate you with the main asset the labels still have to offer: $$$.

But you’d never know it if you’re a Boomer or Gen Xer listening to your local FM pop station. “Beautiful Things” feels like it was made for middle aged listeners, and nobody will blame you if you mistake it for a ’90s coffeehouse track. But the real shocker after hearing it is learning that Boone is just 21 years old.

“Beautiful Things” has that wedding song gravitas, and its chart-topping power lies in its emotional lyrical content and Boone’s over-the-top delivery of the chorus. Essentially, Boone sings as a broken man who has found a new lease on life. Times have been tough, but now he sees his family “every month” and has “found a girl my parents love.” If that ain’t a tearjerker many can relate to, then I don’t know what tearjerking is.

But the emotional lift is in the build-up to the chorus, both lyrically and musically: Boone becomes more and more desperate as the song goes on, pleading (to God and whoever will listen) to please don’t take away his Beautiful Things. And when Boone shifts into high-octave overdrive in the chorus (“Please stay, I want you, I need you, oh God, Don’t take these BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT I’VE GOT.”).

It’s not something I’ll ever play at the club, and nobody at the club will ever request it. I still listen to my local FM hits station (the same station I worked at in the late ’90s) and “Beautiful Things” is what we used to call overplayed. I get in my car, drive 15 minutes down the freeway and hear “Beautiful Things.” If I don’t hear it, then I check my mail and drive the 15 minutes back, and then I hear “Beautiful Things.” You can’t get away from it…and it used to be annoying. But today, with your Spotify in your pocket, you don’t have to listen to it at all if you don’t want to. Or, you can listen to it over and over and over, without ever visiting a record store to buy it and without rewinding a tape, turning over a vinyl record, pressing the back button on a CD, or even getting up off the couch.

The more I’ve heard “Beautiful Things” the more I appreciate it. So, if I’m Benson Boone, I’m enjoying my time at the top – and I’m loving being overplayed as long as they’ll have me.