BOOM

Album: Orion (2019)
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Songfacts®:

  • This anthem for walking away from a toxic relationship with head held high was penned by X Ambassadors frontman Sam Harris from personal experience. "I've had to break off a few of them recently myself, and I was writing all these sad songs because of it," he said. "I needed to write one to give me confidence again. To turn my pain into my power."
  • The artwork for "Boom" features a series of dots which spell "boom" in Braille. X Ambassadors keyboardist Casey Harris has been blind from birth, so this is the first physical manifestation of the band's work he has been able to view.
  • The song was produced by Ricky Reed (Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty," Pitbull's "Fireball", Meghan Trainor's "No").
  • The music video starts off with X Ambassadors performing the song wearing outfits that resemble construction-site safety uniforms. About halfway through it takes a surreal turn as an overhead light drops on Sam Harris' head, knocking him out. The singer picks himself up and continues to perform despite his injuries.
  • Sam Harris explained to Billboard the song came from a demo that had been sitting on his computer for a while from a session with a producer named Thomas Eriksen. Later when X Ambassadors were recording with Ricky Reed and Harris was looking for a drum sample to use in a different song, he pulled up "Boom." He'd forgotten all about it and exclaimed, "Whoa, what's that? We should work on that right now." They finished it within a day or two.

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