Shortly after taking the stage at the 2025 BMI Pop Awards, where he was being honored with the BMI Champion Award, Benson Boone took a moment between performing hits like “Slow It Down” and “Beautiful Things” to thank his co-writer Jack LaFrantz for helping to bring his musical vision to life.
“Any of these songs that you hear, you’d not be hearing without him,” said Boone, who also received two awards for the aforementioned hits. “The producers and the writers and the people I get to be in the room with mean everything to me, because it does make my job fun, especially when I can bond with those people and be friends with those people in and out of the studio, it means so much to me. So if you’re trying to be a musician, you’re trying to play shows, you’re trying to write songs, you’re trying to release songs, find people you love and make it something that you love because I promise you it’s the best thing ever when you find gold in a room.”
Honoring the musicians who helped shape his biggest hits was in the spirit of the 2025 BMI Pop Awards, which celebrated songwriters and publishers behind the 50 most-performed pop songs of the last year. Throughout the evening, the creatives behind the tracks paraded across the stage at Los Angeles’ Beverly Wilshire, posing for photos in a procession of wins.
Taylor Swift, who was not in attendance, was awarded songwriter of the year for the second consecutive year. She was honored for writing seven of the most-performed hits, including “Don’t Blame Me,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” “Down Bad,” “Fortnight,” “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” and “Is It Over Now?”
Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” won for song of the year, co-written by Julian Bunetta, Mikky Ekko and Marco “Infamous” Rodriguez. Elsewhere, Universal Music Publishing Group was crowned publisher of the year for representing 28 of the celebrated songs including Doja Cat’s “Agora Hills” and Eminem’s “Houdini.”
Many other hits were highlighted throughout the evening, including SZA’s “Saturn,” Tate McRae’s “Greedy,” Tyla’s “Water,” Jack Harlow’s “Lovin’ on Me,” Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor,” Dua Lipa’s “Houdini,” Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova,” Miley Cyrus’ “Used to Be Young,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Feather” and more. Attendees in the crowd included Bonnie McKee, JP Saxe, Lisa Loeb, Sean Momberger, D’Mile, John Ryan, Gregory Hein, Verse Simmonds, Ross Golan, Gregg Alexander and Daneille Brisebois.
The 2025 BMI Pop Awards were co-hosted by BMI President & CEO Mike O’Neill; VP, Worldwide Creative Barbara Cane; VP, Creative, NY Samantha Cox; and VP, Creative, LA Tracie Verlinde.
