Singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Eddie Benjamin is crashing into 2025 with “MANIAC,” the piano-pounding lead single from his upcoming debut studio album via Epic Records. The startlingly dynamic track comes with a cinematic video that’s equal parts intense performance piece and mini horror flick. Today the video also made its broadcast premiere on MTV Live, MTVU and MTV Biggest Pop. Watch the music video, directed by Mitch deQuilettes (Childish Gambino, shygirl], now below.
Inspired by processing the grief that comes with the end of a relationship, “MANIAC” captures the sense of a sudden ending. “You treat me like a maniac, how do you lose that love so fast?” Eddie coos amid surprising cascades of piano, peals of guitar, warm bass runs, and percussive keys all played by the artist himself— a rock/soul/jazz whirlwind that flirts with chaos with bounds of pop balladry. The track’s passion is matched by the video, which finds Eddie playing a baby grand in a low-lit room while a dancer’s wild choreography takes an incredibly dark turn.
The song sets the stage for a full-length album due later in 2025, a coming-of-age set of songs that deals with relationships, loss, grief, and the innate need for authentic human connection.
“Losing someone was the start of the story and my first attempt at dealing with my exploding emotions,” Eddie says of his new single. “As a listener, I want to hear what the fuck is happening in someone’s life. Creating sonic stories is so secondhand for me, so when I looked at what I was going through, I had the skill set to express it without any smoke and mirrors.”
Eddie Benjamin, a true “your artists favorite artist,” has been putting that effortless musicality and expression to use in helping others tell their most honest stories as of late, as well — writing, producing, and playing across much of WILLOW’s GRAMMY-nominated empathogen and Shawn Mendes’ soul-baring Shawn, among others.
That recent activity has only upped the anticipation for fans awaiting Eddie Benjamin’s first new set of songs since 2023’s conceptual Weatherman EP, which not only included the titular hit, “Weatherman” —dubbed one of the “best songs of the year” by TIME — but also Alessia Cara duet “Only You,” which the duo brought to Jimmy Kimmel Live! in scorching fashion. That set was a culmination following Benjamin’s star turn opening for Justin Bieber’s Justice World Tour, and his striking 2021 debut EP, Emotional, which garnered widespread praise. With “MANIAC” as the opening salvo to his new musical era, Benjamin is poised to blow past the high expectations he’s set so far.