Pop · DevelopingFP-017 · Side B
Benjamin Elgar Wants Every Song to Be an Event
Four self-released singles, a Bhad Bhabie collaboration he directed the video for, and a ten-track debut that runs under half an hour. The Los Angeles pop singer is building the old way, one visual at a time.
Disclosure: First Press operates independently but shares ownership ties with LUSIVEX, which works with Benjamin Elgar.
Ask Benjamin Elgar who he grew up on and the answer comes as a list of performers rather than records: Britney, Michael, Timbaland, Missy Elliott, Aaliyah, Madonna. He gave that list to METAL magazine, and added the qualifier that explains his whole catalog so far: anyone who "turned songs into events." Elgar's releases arrive that way, as a song plus a video plus a look, and the music is built to carry the staging.
The singles
Elgar is a Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter and performer, according to his Spotify biography. METAL describes a teenager who spent years dancing, gigging and working nightclub stages, already running his own shows and lighting at sixteen. That background is audible. These are songs written for a body in motion.
The run started in May 2024 with Shameless, a two-minute debut that The Culture Fix heard as dark R&B-influenced pop with a slow-burning cool. Elgar co-wrote it with Alana Chenevert and John Ho; Ho and The Last Artful, Dodgr produced it, and James Larese directed the video. Two more singles followed in 2024:
- Too High (June 2024)
- Better Tho (October 2024), which METAL reports debuted at No. 3 on the iTunes Pop chart. Elgar told the magazine the song was about reclaiming strength after heartbreak.
Every one of them is self-released, with the copyright line on each Spotify page reading Benjamin Elgar alone.
HOE
The turn came in May 2025 with HOE, a duet with Bhad Bhabie and his first collaboration with another artist. Elgar told METAL it was the most confident he had ever felt putting a record out, and that he wanted it "loud, unapologetic, and a little chaotic." His Spotify biography says he directed the music video himself. That detail matters more than the guest. A new artist who can hold the camera on his own concept is an artist who controls how he is seen, and in pop that is most of the job.
Make It Through The Night
The debut album, Make It Through The Night, landed on September 19, 2025. Ten tracks, 27 minutes. Months before release he described it to METAL as "emotional, messy, sexy, and cinematic."
The Spotify biography credits co-production to The Last Artful, Dodgr and John Ho, the team from the first single, and sums up the subject matter as heartbreak, desire and finding confidence after a difficult relationship. The biography places it across pop, R&B and dance. The album folds in all four singles, which gives it the shape of a career recap as much as a statement. The six new songs are where a first-time listener learns something:
- Make It Through The Night, the opener and title track
- Anytime
- Oxygen
- Clear
- Song For You
- Faithless, the closer
Each new track got its own lyric video on his YouTube channel, consistent with the rest of the rollout: nothing goes out without a visual.
What to watch
The short running time is a choice, and a smart one for a developing act: ten songs in under half an hour leaves nothing room to overstay. The open question is range. Elgar has proven he can make a confident, glossy single and frame it himself. The next step is a song that surprises, something that does for his ballads what HOE did for his swagger.
His music is on Spotify and Apple Music, with links at benjaminelgar.com.