Conan Gray has returned with his vulnerable new single “Winner,” which finds the platinum-selling Gen Z pop king pouring out his feelings.
The singer and songwriter teamed up with acclaimed producer Greg Kurstin (Adele, Gorillaz, Sia) on the track, which finds him exorcising past pain caused by another.
“Now there’s no one/Who ever has done better/At making me feel worse,” he sings over the anthemic instrumental. “Now you really are the winner/Yeah, there’s nothing/That ever did quite kill me/More than what you did/Now you really are the winner/Take a bow cos you’re the winner.”
“I wrote this song at 2am,” Gray explained in a press release. “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.”
“Winner” is Gray’s second release of 2023, following the buzzing “Never Ending Song.” So far, that track has racked up nearly 40 million global streams in addition to nearly five million views of the music video on YouTube.
“I wanted to make something that felt like a true reflection of who I am these days,” the star said of that single upon its release. “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.”
“Winner” and “Never Ending Song” come after Gray released his second album, Superache, in 2022. That record saw him reunite with Dan Nigro, with whom he worked on his debut, Kid Krow, and set a standard for Gen Z’s emotional outpouring through candid songwriting and vulnerability.