New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Today, New Zealand alternative pop star BENEE returns with a brand new single and music video entitled "Green Honda" via Republic Records.
"Green Honda," which was featured on New
Music Daily on Apple Music, is the first new song from BENEE leading up to a larger body of work due out later this year.
Heading to Los Angeles to work with MXM Music's Elvira Anderfjard (Tove Lo, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift) and Luka Kloser (Jojo Siwa, Dylan Conrique), the New Zealand alt-pop queen tapped into the crazy new energy she found with these new collaborators.
BENEE spoke on creating "Green Honda" and the real life Green Honda that she still owns:
"It was such a refreshing experience to be in the studio writing with two other young women. There is so much that you just don't need to explain when you're working with your true peers. It's intuitive. They just get it, and that's amazing.
Green Honda was quite a light-hearted song at first, and some parts just flowed immediately. I headed straight to Europe on tour after the writing session, so I had to go back and forth with Elvira and Luka to get the production just right.
I wanted the energy of the song to capture the idea I had of writing a song about knowing where you're at and what you need to say and not being afraid.
There is a personal history to the Green Honda story… my green Honda was my first car, passed on to me by my grandmother when she gave up driving. I call him 'Steve', and he's on the cover of my 'STELLA & STEVE' EP. We've had lots of adventures together.
The song is the "I'm f***ing over you" song you didn't know you needed and says everything you wish you had said to your ex. From the top, she declares, "You were a waste of fucking time," before doubling down with, "I pull up in my green Honda to tell ya that I don't want ya!"
The accompanying video, shot in Lancaster, CA and directed by Eliot Charof & AA, sees BENEE and her pals cavorting through a bubblegum electro junkyard world with cars, dogs, wild fashion, and full-on attitude.
Next up, BENEE graces the stage of Coachella for the very first time this spring, appearing at the festival on April 14th-16th and April 23rd-25th.
Since her acclaimed 2022 Lychee EP, BENEE has gathered tens of millions of streams across a series of fan favorite collaborations including "Uh Oh" with Sub Urban, "Ott" with easy life, "I'm So Happy" with Jeremy Zucker, "fun out of it" with Johnny Orlando, and, most recently, "Lots of Nothing" with Spacey Jane.
BENEE's dreamy alt-pop mixes her deeply heartfelt reflections on life in suburban Auckland, New Zealand with offbeat and often whimsical lyrical twists, all produced with a technicolor ear for cooked beats and unpredictable hooks. The 23-year-old broke through in 2020 with "Supalonely," her global hit with 4 billion streams, and her follow-up Hey u x debut album was a vibrant musical world with guests ranging from
Grimes and
Lily Allen to
Gus Dapperton and Muroki (another New Zealand teen BENEE has since signed to her own label, Olive). It was listed as one of Billboard's "25 Best Pop Albums of 2020," noting that BENEE "contemplates the woes of Gen Z with a keen ear for choruses and arrangements that oscillate between indie rock and hyperpop." Stereogum praised its "quirky but impeccably produced pop music" and Vogue called it "13 tracks of heavenly indie-alt-pop." Platinum Awards piled up around the globe, and she performed "
Supalonely" — live from New Zealand — on The
Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Ellen, and Late Night with Seth Meyers and recorded a heartfelt live version of album opener "Happen To Me" for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Last year, BENEE returned with her 2022 Lychee EP, with her song "Doesn't Matter" revealing the singer's journey through the emotional clatter of 2021. A hefty touring schedule followed, leading into new music in 2023 and kicking off with "Green Honda."
Get ready for more from BENEE soon!
