All I can say is BENEE enraptured my attention from the the first note of the first track I heard, the first track of this week’s Monday Mixtape, “Happen to Me.”

Every once in a while, a song really catches my attention, but when it’s a new artist I’ve never heard, I’m usually skeptical. It’s probably a one-off, I think to myself. But I have to look into the album where the song came from when I hear a track like this. And so begins my love of BENEE.

BENEE is of the Lorde / Billie Eilish / Grimes / SZA mold, I guess, simply because she’s a young (20 years old!) female with a sound that resonates with the times. Like Lorde, she’s from Auckland, New Zealand. Like SZA, she’s got more soul, R&B, and funk in her songs than any of the others could even try.

More importantly, the others got massively popular with the release of one album, and I think the same is going to happen to BENEE. She’s got six or seven big hits on her just-released album, Hey u x.

She’s got a great voice, a sweet wispy, almost husky serenade. Her vocals really shine when she’s performing on bare tracks like “C U,” “Want Me Back,” or when she shows up as a feature like Joji’s “Afterthought.” (which isn’t on this playlist!)

She’s got a better voice than Lorde, Grimes, and Eilish, but her lyrics are pretty usual, at least in Lorde standards. She’s not the creative solo genius that Grimes brings to the table, but almost every one of her songs is catchy, and there aren’t bad tracks. They all have great drum beats, lay on the synths and spacey effects when needed, and her vocals and intonations always make the song stronger. Her album sounds like a team that’s been playing together for years, seamlessly in sync at every bridge, chorus, intro, and outro.

I also hear influence from other bands I love, like the xx (if you don’t hear the xx on “Happen To Me” than you crazy!) and Beach House. Her songs, like theirs, can be very subtle: a guitar lick (the one on “Monsta” is so sick), a drum beat, her vocals, and occasionally bits of keyboards and synths too add some memorable spice. She makes subtle sweet and powerful.

On Spotify, she’s currently 343rd in the world. Not bad (seriously)! I’m going to go on a limb and guarantee she’ll be in the Top 50 by the end of 2021.

This is your year, BENEE!