Fans will be hearing, and seeing, more of Benson Boone throughout this year. He’s opened the year with a “Sugar Sweet” single, he’ll be releasing an EP in May, headlining a tour that’ll see him in so many places starting this April, and he’ll be dropping an album by the end of the year. All that needs to be done is to rename 2023 Benson Boone’s year.
We first saw Boone on American Idol two seasons ago, where he surprised everyone by quitting just after Katy Perry predicted he’d be emerging as the ultimate champion. Luckily, he didn’t quit because he didn’t want to grow his music career, as evidenced by his signing with Imagine Dragon’s Dan Reynolds record label and Warner Records soon after. Now, the team at Warner Records is determined to make him a global superstar this year, and I’d say that their head is in the right place with “Sugar Sweet” – a song about the sweetest love turning bitter.
“If I could count the stupid things I do / For you or just for a taste / I’d make it to a million just to realize / It was all just a chase / Oh, what a waste,” he sings in the opening verse of the wasted efforts he’d put into loving someone.
With a chorus that’s decisive about not welcoming their ex-lover with open arms whenever they come “running back” Boone – with help from his incredible voice – sings that his lover thought her love was honey that tastes like sugar, whereas the singer-songwriter insists that it never was sugar because it was bitter. He also made it clear that money won’t buy back his love because “love ain’t cheap.”
“‘Sugar Sweet’ is my sassy song about moving on from someone who treats you like a second option instead of a priority,” Boone says of his first release of 2023. “This is for everyone that can relate and found their confidence in themselves.” Produced by Jason Evigan, who has worked with the likes of Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa, Maroon 5, and more, the track lists the wonderful things that the singer has done for his lover, but it’s not enough as she later tosses him aside in her bid to find greener pastures.
Filmed in Hawaii, the music video accompanying the single begins with Boone’s onscreen girlfriend disentangling her hands from his and walking away before we’re flashed back to the good old days when he had so many fun memories with her and their friends.