This Arizona 24-Year Old is Taking the Music World By Storm

Since the release of his first single, “Let Me Down Slowly,” Alec Benjamin’s track has accumlated almost 70 million streams in Spotify and he has caught the attention of many listeners with his pure vocals and intricate acoustic songs.

This humble budding artist calls himself a storyteller and that is exactly what he is. His songs are thought-provoking, carefully written and impactful.

Particularly, his song, “If We Have Each Other” is, in my opinion, one of the important songs released in 2018. In the song, he tells the story of three characters: a 19-year old single mother, an old dying couple, and himself (and his sister). What I like about the song is that these are very real experiences that every single person will go through. It is raw, honest and hopeful. The most powerful lines in the song, “The world’s not perfect but it’s not that bad. If we’ve got each other and that’s all we have, […] you should know I’ll be there for you.” These few lines in the chorus mean more than just a personal connection between him and another person, but rather all of us as a species. There are so many underlying messages about world peace, compassion and empathy. The song is truly a masterpiece.

Another heart-piercing song by Benjamin is “Death of a Hero.” In the song, he mourns the moment when his childhood hero had let him down and he realizes that he is no longer a child. “That night I put my youth in a casket and buried it inside of me.” This is a line that many people can also relate to. Again, Benjamin writes with such genuiness and maturity that is lacking in most songs today.

So we’ve establishes that Alec Benjamin is a great lyricist, but his music is equally as vivid. In most of his songs, he builds his instrumentals on an acoustic guitar riff. The melodies are simple, but elegant. He often places accents on the syncopated beats to create a catchy groove. His voice has such a sweet innocence to it that it’s hard to tell that he is 24-years old.

Alec Benjamin is currently on tour and will be in Toronto on November 20th, 2018 at the Velvet Underground.