Benji Hughes

Benji Hughes is an American musical artist from Charlotte, North Carolina. His first album, A Love Extreme, was released in 2008.

A Love Extreme On July 22, 2008, Benji Hughes released his debut album, entitled A Love Extreme on New West Records. A Love Extreme is a double-disc album containing 25 songs. It was recorded with producer and Los Angeles session musician Keefus Ciancia. Hughes' live band during this period contained a rotating cast of members, including Barbara Gruska (of Jenny Lewis and The Belle Brigade) on drums; two of Hughes' former Muscadine bandmates; solo-artist and producer Jonathan Wilson on guitar and backing vocals, and Stacy Leazer on bass and backing vocals; Ciancia on keyboards; solo artist and producer Jon Lindsay on keyboards and vocals, and veteran Charlotte musicians Peter Gray (guitar) and David Kim (drums), among others. The album received favorable reviews from some prominent critics, including Jon Pareles of The New York Times and Chuck Klosterman of Esquire, but it sold few copies. XXOXOXX and OXOXOXOXOX were later re-released under the names Another Extreme and A Lover's Extreme (not to be confused with 2008's A Love Extreme) respectively on May 8, 2020.

In August 2015, it was announced that Hughes signed to Merge Records and would release a new full-length album in 2016. The album, Songs in the Key of Animals, was released in 2016.

On May 8, 2020, alongside re-releases of XXOXOXX and OXOXOXOXOX, Hughes released "Spirit Guide", a 47-minute long single.

Reception Hughes' work has received critical praise. Los Angeles Times critic Mikael Wood called him "something of a cult hero thanks to his brilliant and demented pop records." A 2009 profile of Hughes in The Believer called Hughes "one of the best pop songwriters in America, a musical autodidact and a heavy-hearted leonine balladeer whose confessions from the world off 277 will break your heart." A lengthy 2014 profile by New York music critic Jody Rosen commented that Hughes's extensive following among other musicians and other celebrities was such that "e may have as many famous admirers as civilian ones", and praised his songs for "the way they toss together zingy pop-culture references and traditionalist songcraft; their blend of hepcat shagginess and poetic precision; and especially the mix of wry and lavishly romantic, of tongue-in-cheek and heart-on-sleeve."

Discography

Studio albums A Love Extreme (2008) OXOXOXOXOX (renamed A Lover's Extreme for 2020 reissue) (2014) XXOXOXX (renamed Another Extreme for 2020 reissue) (2014) LILILIL (2014) Songs in the Key of Animals (2016)

Singles

"Spirit Guide" (2020)