Alec Benjamin writes anthologies, and his fourth full-length release, 12 Notes, is no different. This style of album writing suits Benjamin’s propensity for parables. From his first album, Narrated For You, “Steve” follows an onlooker’s perspective at the Garden of Eden. The song’s titular character cautions against consuming forbidden fruit: “Oh what a waste / To have everything and give it all away.” In the bridge, Benjamin inserts himself, saying he too would be better off taking Steve’s advice, but concludes we are helpless to resist temptation.
The virtuousness of “Steve” surfaces throughout Benjamin’s catalog. Persona-wise, he is a benign John Mayer: a guitar-wielding singer-songwriter without an edgy playboy attitude. Benjamin has performed with Mayer and cited him as an inspiration since the beginning of his career, but as an artist, he has more in common with the savvy songwriter Ed Sheeran. However, the main criticism levied against Sheeran, that he is brazenly commercial doesn’t apply to Benjamin, who chose what would become the most successful single from 12 Notes in spite of his record label’s insistence that it is “too wordy”.
Benjamin did an astute job promoting this single, “I Sent My Therapist to Therapy”, on TikTok. First, the benign content: Benjamin lip-syncs the track’s lyrics and interacts with an animation that jokingly asks users to choose which of several afflictions constitute “why they need therapy”. However, he also revealed the song has landed him in legal trouble, as his former therapist, the song’s subject, is suing him.
The song doesn’t flatter the therapist as a professional, who confesses to the narrator that he sought counseling of his own after hearing the narrator’s problems. Social media users have taken issue with Benjamin’s trivialization of a violation of client-counselor boundaries, while some users only object to the therapist’s behavior. Regardless of the veracity of the song’s claims, it has performed the best of the tracks from 12 Notes at 19 million Spotify streams. On the Zach Sang Show, Benjamin said, “Sometimes … I can kinda see in [a therapist’s] eyes… maybe I said too much.” This honesty has served the song well.
“I Sent My Therapist to Therapy” is a quintessential Alec Benjamin track in terms of its perspective-swapping narrative. In his body of work, Benjamin has crammed complex plotlines into the pop song framework. What’s holding his songs back from commercial success isn’t messiness in their construction; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
A slick melodic cadence with symmetrical syllable counts holds his songs together. On “Older”, from 2022’s (Un)Commentary, Benjamin constructs an airtight chorus around a single rhyme: “Guess my childhood is over / Now I’m takin’ down my posters / And I’m tellin’ all my friends we’ll get together next October.” However, the chorus of “The Way You Felt” indicates the double-edged sword of his conscientious writing. He says, “Oh, I fell for your charm / I was so infatuated / But you left me in the dark and my heart completely vacant.” The meter stays consistent, but it’s a long way to get to a rhyme.
Benjamin is an essential, if underappreciated, pop artist because he is a true writer. His doggedness at telling flushed-out stories in songs sets him apart from his idol John Mayer, who uses sensitivity as an aesthetic for tracks centered around guitar licks, while, for Benjamin, storylines take center stage. The commitment to spelling out the fate of the characters in “I Sent My Therapist to Therapy” indicates earnestness absent from the current pop landscape, where songs often transition from the second to the final chorus with no pause for introspection. Earnestness may not be cool, but by structuring catchy melodies around confessions, Benjamin creates space for his musings.
Benjamin’s reflection on seeking counseling displays a keen sense of irony regarding the trendiness of self-help. Saying that a favorite hobby “is my therapy” has become shorthand for enjoying something. In “I Sent My Therapist to Therapy,” Benjamin reassigns therapy to its deserved significance while investigating its downsides. Discovering his therapist has significant problems of his own, as does his therapist, reveals the individualized path of fulfillment that wellness culture encourages distracts from what we have in common, the knowledge of which is reassuring in and of itself.
The perspective switch in “I Sent My Therapist to Therapy” is a useful songwriting tactic because it allows the maximum amount of plot possible to exist in a genre, pop, that lends itself to brevity. In the song “Boy in the Bubble,” from his debut record, Benjamin constructs a similar framework by telling a story about bullying. The main character, trying to remain isolated from bullies, discovers his antagonist also exists in a “bubble” of his own, an abusive home that causes him to lash out.
Alec Benjamin’s naturally high vocal range may seem to chafe against his writing’s seriousness, but it ultimately complements it. His androgynous tenor attracts a younger audience and reflects the dilemma many artists who cater to this demographic face: aspects of their presentation prevent them from being taken seriously, no matter how well-constructed their music is. However, the contrast between Benjamin’s voice and his vocabulary represents the reality that artists often create art in spite of themselves. Embracing inner pain isn’t fun, but sometimes maintaining a functional life, just like creating a diverse body of work, requires it.
The title track of 12 Notes rivals “Older” and “Let Me Down Slowly” for the best song in Benjamin’s catalog. Since his default vocal range is inherently emasculating, using it to express vulnerability comes with a built-in earnestness. Another clause is contained in Benjamin’s confession: he’s not like other guys. The act of writing music itself is an emotional process that betrays the toughness men stereotypically embody. John Mayer keeps up this facade through his playboy reputation, which backfired when Taylor Swift wrote “Dear John” about him. Benjamin seems too nice to invite similar criticism.
Another highlight of 12 Notes, “A Little”, lacks a bridge section, unlike most of Alec Benjamin’s songs. Its strength lies in its brevity- the final chorus repeats a second time, communicating a feeling of desperation that new words would only complicate. For all his wordiness, Benjamin knows when to let the music speak for itself.
Elsewhere on the album, singles “Sacrifice Tomorrow” and “King Size Bed” serve as reminders of Alec Benjamin’s ability to create an upbeat, catchy pop song. “King Size Bed” is a quick kiss-off to a former lover framed around the idea of being financially able to accommodate a partner’s wishes after the end of a relationship.
Melodically, catchy songs start with a certain pattern and return to it because, for listeners, predicting the conclusion of that pattern is satisfying. As Benjamin brings the melody of “King Sized Bed” up and down, he takes detours before reaching a resolution, holding the listener in suspense before delivering a concise conclusion.
At crucial moments throughout 12 Notes, Benjamin opts for minimalism. “King Size Bed” and “Sacrifice Tomorrow” fall short of the three-minute mark but feel complete as songs. “King Size Bed” has room for a chanted bridge, in which Benjamin regretfully admits, “Oh, just like I said, I bought the bed.” “Sacrifice Tomorrow”, which flirts with R&B, is a cool meditation on temptation as slick as its message: “I’ve got close that you can borrow, so let’s sacrifice tomorrow.”
Alec Benjamin is a pop artist for the conscientious listener, occupying a similar musical role as Christopher Nolan’s role in film as the master of the “thinking man’s blockbuster”. Achieving depth in a form meant for mass consumption can be self-sabotaging, but Benjamin presents his thought experiments in sleek, synth-driven packages delivered with smooth vocals.
His breakout single, “I Built a Friend”, used in a viral America’s Got Talent Audition, describes Benjamin’s relationship with a childhood toy as he ages. The simplicity of the piano chords, played lightly throughout, alongside Benjamin’s high vocal range, sonically conveys childhood innocence. Meanwhile, the lyrics express that although youthful heartbreaks contain elements viewed as inherently trivial from an older perspective, their pain is no less real. The lines “An empty glass of water that he spilt / All over the body that I built” portray an imaginary friend’s death, implying neglect on the part of the narrator, who went to college and forgot about his childhood companion. The song asks: Is growing up worth leaving childhood treasures behind, even if, by leaving them, we not only part with them but ensure their destruction?
Writing is an act that preserves one’s younger emotional self, or “inner child”, as wellness culture calls it. Because writing requires objectivity when evaluating subjective emotions, by its nature, it strips away adult compromises that stifle instinct and lends itself to child-like thinking, which honors impulsivity. Through his nature as a writer, Alec Benjamin preserves this aspect of himself and presents it to the world in bite-sized pop packages. He doesn’t market these thoughts as an overarching storyline but as 12 little ones. However, the through line between them is that they were probably therapeutic to write.