- 2024-04-07
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MUSIC
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Donate to support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine ➔ Conan Gray Releases New Album “Found Heaven”
American singer-songwriter Conan Gray released the third studio album “Found Heaven” on April 5, 2024.
It is his first album in two years since the 2022 album “Superache”.
This time, he created new sounds inspired by '80s synth-pop, '70s glam rock and new wave with producers Max Martin, Greg KurstinIlya, Shawn Everett, Oscar Holter, Fat Max Gsus, and Luka Kloser on the album.
Conan Gray told PAPER about working with Working with Max Martin, “Max and the rest of the MXM crew was like the most beautiful year of pop music boot camp. The swedes are genius, but more so just deeply passionate about making great music. That's all it boils down to. It was an honor.”
And the album tells a tale of love lost, which is inspired by his first love that didn't end well unlike the hypothetical ones he sang about in previous albums.
He told Rolling Stone, “With Superache, I got used to reminiscing and making up stories, whereas this album was a lot more present. I'm just singing about exactly what was happening at the moment or what had happened this year. This whole album is letting myself feel all of my emotions and letting them hit me like a wave rather than running away from them.”- He said about the album in Zach Sang Show, “I fell in love for the very first time. Then got dumped. It changes you. It did not end well. There was a massive relief in that I could feel those things and that's also why I named it Found Heaven. That's a very happy thing... but also it killed me and I died. You learn a lot. It was simultaneously the most incredible experience in my life and I wouldn't change it for anything, but it was so fucking gut-wrenching. It was horrible, but it was worth it.”
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Conan Gray explained about some tracks for the album.
“Found Heaven”
“I wrote the beginnings of it right of the tail of my last tour, and to me it was kind of the thesis statement of the whole album, because it's a song about finding your own sense of happiness, even if it disappoints everyone in your life...
I was raised really religiously, and I think people maybe might take the song as a religious song, but its not necessarily about Christianity, or about slandering Christianity, I guess. Its much more about having to life your life, you have to live your life on your own terms.”
“Never Ending Song”
“It's about a tale as old as time and something we've all gone through, which is a painful, tumultuous relationship that just never seems to die no matter how many times you kill it. The story just drags on and on. Maybe that's by design, or maybe you secretly don't want it to ever end. I've always enjoyed disguising my sadness inside of upbeat music. It's how I've handled life. I never like to take myself too seriously – life is painful enough as is.
I wanted to make something that felt like a true reflection of who I am these days. It felt like a celebration of emotions rather than mourning them. It's beautiful that we get to grow and change together. 'Never Ending Song' is the beginning of a story.”
“Fainted Love” via Rolling Stone
“Fainted Love” is about accepting love that is not as great as you deserve. I think there's been so many times in life that I've accepted lesser forms of love just for the sake of knowing that somebody loved me at all in some way. It's a super damaging thing. You should not do that, but let's be fucking real. We're human beings. We do it all the time. You see people who are in five-year relationships with people they should not be dating, but sometimes it's better than no love. I wanted to write a song that encapsulated that feeling of driving to go see this person who never treats you right, but you still go back to them over and over because you know that you'd rather somebody than be alone. It's not a play on 'Tainted Love.' I'd originally written 'Faded Love,' but then I was singing it and I was like, 'This sounds weird. I don't know why.' And so I changed it to Fainted Love because it sounded like “fated.” But that's not what I'm singing about!
“Lonely Dancers”
“So it's essentially a song about when we first started dating, and then I first got ghosted. It was like the first time and I was like, 'Wait a minute, what's going on?'”.
“Alley Rose” via Rolling Stone
“Alley Rose” is my favorite on Found Heaven. It was the very last song that I wrote on the album. I think the last song on my albums always ends up encapsulating the whole album, which I find to be a huge relief. I went through a breakup last year. It was my first real breakup, and it was really, really eye-opening and interesting and formative and painful and all of these incredible huge emotions that I wasn't expecting. I'd always turned off my emotions when experiencing pain, whereas this, I just let it hit me like a truck. I'd been dumped and I was in London. I was supposed to be there with this person that I was seeing and then I wasn't. And all of a sudden I was like, “OK, I'm on Abbey Road right now and you're not here with me. Where did you go? Why did things end up so bad?” When I was writing it, I was like, “OK, I should probably not name the song Abbey Road, the most famous album of all time.” So I decided to come up with a name that kind of sounded like Abbey Road. I wanted you to think of somebody when you listen to the song.
“The Final Fight”
“The Final Fight is about wishing you could get the last word, you know, when you've been in an argument with someone or decided that someone needs to leave your life so you left them and then you're like I wish i said that last thing”
“Miss You”
“I was seeing somebody last year that, like, things ended really bad and it was really sad and it was really hard. And when I was going through that I was, like, looking back at other people that I had liked in the past. And I was like, dang, like, I really fumbled the bag there. Cause, like, you were so much nicer than the other people, than the person that I just dated. Like dang, is it bad to say right now that I kinda miss you?”
“Bourgeoisieses” via Rolling Stone
“'Bourgeoisieses' is definitely the weirdest song on the album, and you can see that just from the title alone. I grew up in a bunch of different houses and was super poor at times and had just enough money to get by at other times. I always thought in my mind, 'Wow, money is such a crazy thing and it can change people's lives so completely.' I've always found it to be such a ridiculous conversation. And the name 'Bourgeoisieses' is an intentionally misspelled plural of the bourgeoisie. I wanted to make a song that was jokingly saying I want to be part of the bourgeoisie, but not knowing anything about that so that's why it's misspelled. It's a song poking fun at rich people and how ridiculous rich people can be and how ridiculous that world is and how futile and useless of a show of luxury it all is. It's like 'Oh, fuck you, rich people,' but from a previous version of me as a little kid that wanted to understand. The whole song is a massive joke. I don't want anyone to take it seriously. We were laughing our asses off in the studio making that song.”
“Forever With Me” via Rolling Stone
“'Forever With Me' is about reminiscing about something that came and went. It's me saying, “I have all these emotions about you. I really hated you for a while. I feel really angry. But at the end of the day, you'll forever be a part of my life. You'll forever be a part of my story. I learned how to love because of you. I learned how to hate because of you. With all the emotions aside, you'll forever be with me. I'm not sorry that everything happened. I'm grateful that it all happened because we both learned so much and it just kind of is what it is.” You'll always love an ex. You'll always love who they were and what you learned from them. It's a very interesting feeling because I think when you love someone, even if you break up, there's always going to be love for them.”
“Boys & Girls” via Rolling Stone
“'Boys & Girls' is a song about how embarrassing it can be to have a crush on someone hot. Do you know this feeling? I've never heard this talked about in a song where it is so excruciatingly embarrassing to be in love with someone that everyone loves because you're like, 'Damn, I'm just like every other bitch. Your charms are working on me just like they work on everyone else and I feel so stupid because I know you're just playing all of us, but I can't help it. I do want you to love me even though I know everyone's obsessed with you and you're also possibly a terrible human being.'”
“Killing Me”
“I wrote 'killing me' while I was sick with the flu. It was a miserable time where I was both physically sick, but also super heartbroken over somebody. Hence, 'you're KILLING me.' I think we all have those people who don't treat us nearly well enough, but we just can't seem to let them go. People who call you at 2AM, and who you know you shouldn't pick up...but you do. 'Killing Me' is for when you're on your last limb begging this person to just please stop torturing your heart.”
“Winner”
“I wrote this song at 2am. Everything at the piano just spilled out all at once. it was a moment where I finally felt like, 'fine. great job. you did it. you hurt me more than anybody ever could hurt me.' And it oddly felt nice. I see now that there is a certain freedom that comes from recognizing that you've been hurt. In no longer running, and just facing the fact that 'you win. you hurt me.' I hope this song helps people find a little piece of that freedom.”
Background photo by Muriel Knudson - source : Apple Music
