On April 5th, Conan Gray released his newest album Found Heaven. The project took his music career in an entirely new direction, experimenting with an 80s pop sound. This was his first album inspired by an actual heartbreak, rather than the hypothetical scenarios that inspired his past songs, that came with his first breakup.
With Found Heaven, Gray took a risk and created songs with sonics that pushed him out of his comfort zone. Both the production and lyricism were quite different from what he is known for and what made him famous on past songs like “Heather.” Gray worked with Max Martin and cited artists like A-Ha, Cutting Crew, and David Bowie as influences. The risk paid off, as the record has received many positive reviews, with Rolling Stone giving it five stars.
Junior Charlotte Collins rates the album a three on a scale of 1-5, stating “It’s a good album considering it’s not my personal music preference.” Her criticism is that “A lot of the songs are really repetitive. The lyrics are majority (in my opinion) repeating the same thing over and over again and it gets kind of meh after the first half of the song.” The songwriting on Found Heaven veered away from Gray’s usual style, focusing more on upbeat choruses.
Two of the album’s singles, “Never Ending Song” and “Lonely Dancers” revealed Found Heaven’s thesis of dancing through pain. They expressed sentiments of heartbreak while still being very fun and upbeat. The more poetic, heart-touching lyrics can be found in the beloved emotional standout of the album: “Alley Rose.” The song is Gray’s favorite off the album and Collins’ as well.
The song questions “Where’d you go Alley Rose?” in its chorus, expressing how shocked and abandoned Gray felt when he was broken up with. “Alley Rose was my favorite song,” says Collins. “It reminded me of a Beatles song because of the use of different musical backgrounds. The opening vocals and setting were lovely.” The lyrics are full of vulnerability, desperation, and passion which culminates in an incredible bridge. The bridge expresses how Gray has learned the meaning and importance of pain through his first relationship with lines like “I swore hands were made for fighting/ I swore eyes were made to cry.” Gray revealed to Rolling Stone that he’s happy he got to experience the full depth of emotions and chose “letting them hit me like a wave rather than running away from them.”
Gray explores other complex love-related emotions in songs such as the title track. In “Found Heaven,” the singer-songwriter dives into the struggle of going after what you want despite resistance from others. In the intro, Gray questions “If there was no god above us, if there was no one watching; how would you live your life?’” as he told NME Interview. Meanwhile, “Miss You” is a song about being avoidant and regretting leaving a loving relationship out of fear.
With Found Heaven, Conan Gray entered a new era of music and his life. He took a risk by experimenting with new sounds and created a unique album that stands out in his discography.
