Benson Boone dropped “Beautiful Things” in January 2024. A month later, it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 and quickly climbed to No. 2. By August 2025, the single had spent over 80 weeks on the chart — the fifth-longest run in history. And its success hasn’t just been in the U.S. On the Billboard Global 200, the track has shown the same kind of staying power, topping the chart for seven weeks. Named IFPI’s Global Single of the Year in 2024, it also remains the only song that year to surpass 2 trillion streams on subscription platforms.

The image of “Beautiful Things” shifted dramatically between its early days and its breakout success. At first, as seen in the music video, it carried the storytelling of an alternative rock anthem: jeans, a band setting up instruments in the desert, building toward a climactic finish. Against this backdrop, the plea “Oh, I hope I don’t lose you” comes across as more than just a line about a relationship — it feels like a prayer for the peace and love God has given to last. It’s convincing enough that one could even imagine the song as part of today’s contemporary Christian music.

For many, the turning point came with his performance at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards. Dressed in a blue jumpsuit, Boone leapt from a piano — once forward, once backward — both times right before the song’s climax. By then, his style had already begun to take on the flamboyance of classic rock icons, but there’s no denying that the jumpsuit became his signature. So, it’s little surprise that he has worn it at every major moment since, from the 67th Grammy Awards to Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Taken together, both “Beautiful Things” and Benson Boone’s career as a whole embody values that might seem unlikely to coexist. His confessions of human vulnerability — in the face of new relationships, even couched in spiritual terms — collide with explosive screams and technically flawless power vocals. His polished looks, signaled by the cover of American Heart, and the acrobatic showmanship of a backflip highlight his physicality on stage. Taken together with the moments that marked his early career, they raise a few questions. Is he, as Rolling Stone once dubbed him on its cover, the “future of music” — a new-era pop icon in the lineage of greatest showmen? Or is he part of a carefully engineered pop strategy tailored for social media and streaming?

Benson Boone first stepped into the public eye on Season 19 of American Idol in 2021. Introduced as a TikToker who had only started singing a year earlier — and didn’t even know he could sing before then — he quickly emerged as a frontrunner after judge Katy Perry praised his potential to win. He cruised into the Top 24, but then suddenly dropped out. While most contestants saw the show as their ticket to making music, Boone admitted he wanted to know if he could pursue music on his own terms. That mix of raw, unexpected talent and the boldness to walk away from the traditional path has become one of pop culture’s defining myths. Boone’s early story laid the foundation for what now feels like his hallmark: authenticity.

At the same time, another narrative has followed him. Shortly after leaving American Idol, Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons took notice and signed Boone to his label, Night Street Records, a subsidiary of Warner Records. Boone began posting his own songs on TikTok, and before he had even officially debuted, he had already amassed 1.7 million followers. The backing of an industry heavyweight and a major label fueled speculation that his rise wasn’t an organic, self-made story at all, but the product of careful industry engineering — the dreaded “industry plant.” From this perspective, even his stint on American Idol looks less like a detour and more like a strategic use of legacy media to build nationwide recognition.

Yet, what makes Benson Boone especially compelling is his ability to recognize the criticism around him — and then fold it back into his own story. Take his vocals, for instance. From the start, they’ve often been compared to Freddie Mercury’s: a voice that combines range and power, paired with theatrical stage presence, flamboyant costumes, and even the piano. During the first weekend of Coachella 2025, Boone decided to confront that comparison head-on. He covered Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and at the pivotal moment, guitarist Brian May appeared onstage. It was a performance that tied Boone’s trademark showmanship to the direct blessing of a rock legend. And then there’s the music video for his recent single “Mr. Electric Blue.” In it, Boone shows up at an office called “Industry Plant Records” wearing a T-shirt that reads “One Hit Wonder.” To scrape together money, he takes on odd jobs — including donning a jumpsuit to promote a jumpsuit clearance sale. As a former diver, he’s seen cleaning a swimming pool, only to climb the springboard and face a sign that reads “No Backflips.” The final shot shows him in a T-shirt that says, “I Hate Benson Boone.”

Of course, replicating criticism of oneself is one of pop culture’s most common forms of satire. Often, though, it works best when the backlash against an artist is overblown or absurd — think of Taylor Swift’s Reputation era, when she repeatedly used the snake as her defining image, stripping it of its power as an insult and turning it into parody. Benson Boone, however, doesn’t wait for backlash to tip in his favor. Instead, he neutralizes criticism through his bond with fans. After Brian May’s cameo during the first weekend of Coachella, longtime rock fans used the performance as proof that comparisons between Boone and Freddie Mercury were unfair. Meanwhile, younger Boone fans recognized “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but didn’t know who Brian May was — and so couldn’t fully react. Boone’s answer? On the festival’s second weekend, he placed a life-size cutout of May onstage. He isn’t waiting for the world’s approval to cement himself in rock history; he’s simply delivering the best entertainment possible to an audience that had already watched the first weekend’s set on YouTube.

That attitude is, in a way, his answer to the contradictions and questions that have surrounded him. Boone has built his hits around power ballads that blend slow, lyrical buildups with explosive choruses — the perfect fit for his voice and vocal range. His lyrics steer clear of the bragging and cynicism so common in contemporary pop, often described instead as harmless. This allows him to embody the image of the classic male rock star through his looks and performance, while also presenting a softer, empathetic masculinity. With deeply personal songs like “In The Stars,” written about the death of his grandmother, and emotional tributes to friends and family, his shows come across as family-friendly and safe. And when he pours so much of himself into a performance — sometimes at the cost of straining his vocal cords — it makes questions about whether his backflips “fit” the context seem unnecessary. He pulls them off brilliantly, and they delight fans of every generation in the audience. Boone has no hesitation about reaching for intimacy with his listeners, and his transparency — giving everything he can without calculation — has earned him a devoted fan base. Which raises another question: Is the consistency some think he lacks really just his way of cloaking himself in a kind of mysterious, artistic ambiguity? Or is he simply too honest for that?

In the end, Benson Boone proves that authenticity doesn’t come from rejecting industry-level planning, development, or backing. If anything, he shows that even when those forces are in full play, what truly matters is the direct connection and empathy he builds with his fans. He became an American idol without ever needing American Idol. His songs make you want to see him live; his performances make you fall in love with him. So, what else could you call him?