Boombox Blitz: Sean McVerry juggles complexity of a working musician’s life in ‘Burning Out’

Welcome to Boombox Blitz, an artist spotlight series showcasing overlooked singers, songwriters and musicians who are quietly taking over the world.

An onslaught of rejection, it’s easy to become burned out on an industry that espouses to celebrate true art. One step forward, 10 steps back, as they say. But for alternative pop firebrand Sean McVerry, a devilishly masterful songwriter worthy of being a superstar at this point, he keeps his head up amidst even the most dire of circumstances. With “Burning Out,” a vigorously euphoric club banger, he stages dual realities, positioning the tangible as it unfolds before him and his often knee-jerk reactions to it. “What’s the answer?” he poses such an existential question with a cheeky grin. And it’s a remarkable one we’re all faced with sooner or later. “I need an answer,” he coos in between layers of fluffy production sheets.

The video, helmed by a slew of his friends and co-conspirators, including director Christina Blankenship and director of photography Matt Speno, works in an abundance of analogies. On the surface alone, McVerry chronicles a seemingly normal day in the life of a New York City musician, from his morning breakfast of toast and avocado to strolling down the sidewalk, and as his routine doesn’t quite go as planned, the viewer is beckoned into his frenetic mind. His reality is split in two, and while he remains pinned to the ground, his mental space falls into the abyss of evocative extremes.

In his fantastical alternate universe, he keeps himself from seeing the good in the world. “I feel like your burning out / I think you need to settle down,” he sings on the chorus, prompting a revelatory self-imposed transformation. Through his introspective sojourn, during which he attempts to navigate the concrete jungle ⏤ at one point, he comes across a concert poster that reads “End of the World,” juxtaposed beside the real one emblazoned with “Good Times Show” in neon green ⏤ and eventually comes to a fuller understanding life and his place within such uncertainty. Later on, McVerry wraps in sly commentary on consumerism and our need to medicate our day-to-day problems with momentary gratification through the lens of a hilariously on-the-nose Hyundai commercial parody.

“Burning Out” follows McVerry’s criminally-underrated Private Lives EP, similarly dressed up on ’80s confetti and disco-synths.

Watch below:

Photo Credit: Kristen Dorata

Follow McVerry on his socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website