ART

Remastered in 2022, including songbook and a never-released bonus track, "How Can I Move On." The vinyl comes with a 20-page songbook and is pressed on white 180-gram vinyl. The album includes the evergreen "Big Brown Eyes" and "All We Do for Love," which was heavily supported by Frank Ocean on his Blonde playlist.

Benny Sings about ART:

"It's 2008, I had finished my third studio album, and felt like I did all the necessary experiments with songwriting and production techniques on the first three albums, to now be free to write whatever I wanted. It felt like I had done my first three years in music school, learning the trade, and was now in my final year, to write my big end thesis. My final work that would say it all. The first three albums were more practice, this was going to be the real deal. This time I was going to make ART. Haha. I had one main idea: if I just write as many songs as I could, it would be a matter of time before I would write the perfect song. No 'riding the wave of inspiration' for me. Just putting hours in. And so I got to work. I wrote three songs a day, for months on end. Just compulsively getting to work every day, punching in the same chords, blurting out the a same melodies and words. And the perfect song did not come along. It felt nightmarish at moments. My relationship just ended, and those days of solitude, filled with constant seemingly senseless repetition were getting to me. Was this the way? Is this normal? Am I actually going insane? Until one day, same doubts, same lack of inspiration, I did the thing I did every day: joylessly punched in some chords, got my book with keywords and phrases out, and began murmuring: 'Pleaase help me out..' The word 'disappear' was in my book, the chorus was about to come in and I sang: 'did it just disappear, just a minute ago it was here...,' and it felt like the sky opened. This was A SONG. Everything, all the lyrics and meaning of the song were clear in that moment. It was such an emotional moment for me, it was hard to record without crying. So I recorded the lyrics in ten minutes, and put the song on repeat, and cried for the rest of the day. Maybe because of the breakup, but more because my goal was reached: I wrote an actual song with meaning and emotion. Something I hadn't done like this before. I cracked the code. I once saw an interview with a mathematician that made a very important discovery in math. He tells about the moment the solution came to him, in his bathroom. When it happened he cried for hours. These were the same tears. Look, I'm not saying 'Big Brown Eyes' is an all-time classic, that is supposed to be up there with 'Blackbird' and 'Hotel California.' All I'm saying is, it is a song that works for a certain group of people. It is worth something. It has been my top streaming song up to date. And it just works as an all-round piece. So, did I go on like this, and find other real songs? Nope. Of course there were songs after that, that I liked, that made the album. Imperfect songs are also nice to listen to. But that song, 'Big Brown Eyes,' is what this album is about for me."