Conan Gray tried this whole “falling in love” thing for the first time last year. He broke his heart and is still in the healing process. But if you ask him, it was worth it — so much so that he recommends doing it.
“I expected to be very bitter about it all,” he admits. “But now I look back, I'm very glad I experienced no emotions at all. You come out the other side a completely different person, but also more yourself than ever.”
That first heartbreak experience – real the heartbreak, not the hypothetical he was singing about — became the focus of his experimental, synth album, Paradise found, out Friday. The LP is his third, and it's a bold, left-field turn for the melancholic, self-described “observer of life.” Now, he lives life and sings about it as it happens.
“With [my last album] Superache, I used to reminisce and make up stories, whereas this album was much more present,” he says. “I'm just singing about what was happening right now or what had happened this year. This whole album I'm letting myself feel all my emotions and letting them hit me like a wave instead of running away from them.”
Sonically, he decided to go against what was expected of him (like the 'Heather' style ballad that made him famous) and make music that really pushed him outside his comfort zone. He experimented with more upbeat sounds and dynamic 80s-style ballads with super producers Max Martin and Ilya. He cites A-Ha, Cutting Crew and David Bowie as inspirations and a playlist he made of songs from 1984.
From his Los Angeles apartment, Gray ripped out five songs from Paradise found:
Forever with me
“Forever With Me” is about looking back on something that has come and gone. I say, “I have all these feelings for you. I really hated you for a while. I feel very angry. But at the end of the day, you will forever be a part of my life. You will 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 feelings aside, you will be with me forever. I'm not sorry that everything happened. I'm thankful it all happened because we both learned so much and that's just the way it is.” You will always love an ex. You will always love who they were and what you learned from them. It's a very interesting feeling because I believe that when you love someone, even if you break up, there will always be love for them.
Bourgeoisie
“Bourgeoisieses” is definitely the weirdest song on the album, and you can tell from the title alone. I grew up in a bunch of different homes and sometimes I was very poor and had enough money to get by other times. I always thought to myself, “Wow, money is such a crazy thing and it can change people's lives so completely.” I always found it to be such a ridiculous conversation. And the name “Bourgeoisies” is an intentionally misspelled plural of bourgeoisie. I wanted to do a song that jokingly said I want to join the bourgeoisie, but I don't know anything about that, so it's misspelled. It's a song that makes fun of the rich and how ridiculous the rich can be and how ridiculous this world is and how vain and useless all this show of luxury is. It's like, “Oh shit, rich people,” but from an earlier version of me who wanted to understand. The whole song is a huge joke. I don't want anyone to take this seriously. We were laughing in the studio making this song.
Alley Rose
“Aley Rose” is my favorite Paradise found. It was the last song I wrote on the album. I think the last song on my albums always ends up wrapping up the whole album, which I find a huge relief. I went through a breakup last year. It was my first real breakup, and it was really, really impressive and interesting and formative and painful and all these incredibly huge emotions that I didn't expect. I always shut down my emotions when I was in pain, and this one, I just let it hit me like a truck. I had been flown and I was in London. I was supposed to be there with this person I was seeing and then I wasn't. And suddenly I said, “Okay, I'm at Abbey Road right now and you're not here with me. Where did you go? Why did things turn out so badly?' When I was writing it, I was like, “Okay, I probably shouldn't call the song Abbey Road, the most famous album of all time.” So I decided to come up with a name that sounded like Abbey Road. I wanted you to think of someone when you hear the song.
Fainting Love
“Fainted Love” is about accepting love that isn't as great as you deserve. I think there have been so many times in life that I have accepted lesser forms of love just to know that someone loved me at all somehow. It is extremely damaging. You shouldn't do this, but let's be real. We are humans. We do it all the time. You see people who are in five-year relationships with people they shouldn't 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 that person who never treats you right, but you still go back to them again and again because you know you'd rather have someone than be alone. It is not a play on “Tainted Love”. I had originally written 'Faded Love,' but then I was singing it and I was like, 'That sounds weird. I do not know why.” And so I changed it to Fainted Love because it sounded like “fainted”. But that's not what I'm singing about!
Boys Girls
“Boys & Girls” is a song about how embarrassing it can be to love someone hot. Do you know that feeling? I've never heard it talked about in a song where it's so excruciatingly embarrassing to be in love with someone that everyone loves because you're like, “Damn, I'm just like any other bitch. Your charms work on me like they work on everyone else and I feel so stupid because I know you're just playing us all but I can't help it. I want you to love me even though I know that everyone is obsessed with you and that you can be a terrible person too.''
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/conan-gray-breaks-down-found-heaven-1234998658/
