Ben Platt has gone from Tony-winning Broadway darling to pop/singer-songwriter artist with his debut album Sing to Me Instead, which incorporates the vocals and storytelling we love from musical theatre with catchy tunes and amazing backup singers found in radio-ready music. Plus, it contains very relatable stories about queer relationships and anxiety.

Disclaimer: We are incorporating clips of each song, but since we analyze the music and lyrics in detail, we believe this is acceptable under the Fair Use Guidelines.

The album is available on all major music retailers and streaming services. Tay talks about attending one of his concerts which you can find more about on his website. We discuss the music videos for "Bad Habit," "Ease My Mind," "Temporary Love," "Grow as We Go," and "Older," which are all linked in this sentence from YouTube.

Some other sources consulted and/or mentioned:

• Article about the behind-the-scenes of some of the songs.
• Interview with his high school friend who directed the music videos.
• Interview with Platt where he does The Dance.
• Performance of "Older" with very welcome cheers at The Gay Line. (Seems to have been removed from the Late Late Show's official channel?)
• Profile from the Dear Evan Hansen days that discusses his anxiety and the singing and emotional demands of the titular role
• We made a few references to Daniel Sloss's standup special Jigsaw, which you can watch on Netflix. We'll be doing an episode about it in the future.

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