BIGSONG:
Conan Lee Gray (born December 5, 1998) is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Lemon Grove, California, and raised in Georgetown, Texas, he began uploading vlogs, covers and original songs to YouTube as a teenager. In 2018, Gray signed a record deal with Republic Records, which released his debut EP, Sunset Season (2018).
Bolstered by the commercially successful songs “Maniac” and “Heather”, his studio album Kid Krow (2020) debuted at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, making it the biggest U.S. artist debut of the year. His second studio album, Superache (2022), received critical acclaim and debuted in the top 10 in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands.
Early life
Conan Lee Gray was born on December 5, 1998, in Lemon Grove, California, to a father of mostly Irish ancestry and a Japanese mother. As an infant, he moved with his family to Hiroshima, Japan, because his grandfather needed medical care after being diagnosed with cancer. After his grandfather passed away, the family moved back to California.
Gray’s parents divorced when he was three years old and he was thereafter raised by a single mother. In a “Draw My Life” video, he details his experiences with divorce as a young child. As his father was in the military, Gray moved 9 times during his childhood, including two times during sixth grade. He was frequently bullied in grade school for being “girlish”.
Gray eventually settled as a preteen in Georgetown, Texas, where he remained for the rest of his teenage years. His life in central Texas inspired much of his art and music. He was accepted to UCLA, and moved to Los Angeles, California, in September 2017. However, he dropped out after only two months to begin touring after he was signed to Republic Records. In July 2021, Gray moved to New York.
Career
2015–2019: Sunset Season
Gray created his official channel in 2013, and began making videos at age 15. His early videos were about topics such as baking and mainly focused on his everyday life. His vlog content centers heavily on his life in small-town Texas. He is often hailed for his appreciation of Americana-related nostalgia. Gray has recorded music, showed his art, and created other videos for his vlog with more than 25 million views.
Gray self-released his debut single, “Idle Town”, in March 2017. The song gained over 14 million streams on Spotify and 12 million views on YouTube. He self-released his second single, “Grow”, on September 1, 2017. In October 2018, he released the single “Generation Why” on Republic Records, which was called “a rallying call to millennials”. In November 2018, he released the five-track EP Sunset Season, which includes the songs “Idle Town”, “Generation Why”, “Crush Culture”, “Greek God”, and “Lookalike”. The EP peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart and at No. 116 on the Billboard 200. Gray embarked on the Sunset Shows tour in support of the EP.
Gray made his late-night television debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers on the eve of February 2019 before performing several shows as an opening act on Panic! at the Disco’s Pray for the Wicked Tour. He played concert festivals such as The Great Escape in addition to touring nationally. In February 2019, Gray re-released the single “The Other Side”after originally publishing it on YouTube in 2016 on the eve of the first day of his senior year of high school. Between March and October 2019, he released three singles from his debut album, Kid Krow, “Checkmate”, “Comfort Crowd”, and “Maniac”, and an independent single, “The King”. In October 2019, Gray embarked on the Comfort Crowd Tour, his second headlining tour of North America, with support from acclaimed New Zealand musician Benee as well as American recording artist UMI. As of October 2019, Gray’s catalog had gained over 250 million streams across all platforms collectively. He received the 2019 Shorty Award for Best YouTube Musician and was nominated for Breakthrough Artist at the 2019 Streamy Awards.
2020–2021: Kid Krow
Throughout the second week of 2020, Gray shared daily hints about the title of his debut album on Twitter. On January 9, 2020, he revealed the title, Kid Krow, and wrote, “I say more on this album than I’ve ever said in my life, and I can’t wait to tell you all of my secrets. Love y’all.” Gray released “The Story” on the same day of the album’s announcement, as well as “Wish You Were Sober” as a surprise release two days before the album’s release. During early 2020, Gray’s single “Maniac” became successful on international mainstream pop radio, specifically in Australia, where it was certified platinum. The song was also certified Platinum in Canada and Gold in the US, making it his first certified song in all three countries. It became his first Billboard-charting single when it reached number 25 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart as well as the top 100 charts of Australia, Ireland and South Korea. Gray released Kid Krow on March 20, 2020, which debuted at number 5 on the Billboard 200 as well as number 1 on the US Pop Albums chart and number 2 on the Top Album Sales chart with over 37 thousand pure sales. In the US, it was the biggest new artist debut of 2020 as of March and was the top pop solo debut album in over two years since Camila Cabello’s 2018 self-titled album. The album was praised by publications such as Paper, Billboard, NPR, Teen Vogue and Paste.
Gray was scheduled to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 16, as well as Coachella in mid April 2020, however both performances were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid 2020, both Forbes and Billboard listed Gray as a frontrunner in their predictions for Best New Artist nominees at the 2021 Grammy Awards. Following the commercial success of Kid Krow, Apple Music named Gray as an Up Next artist and released an exclusive mini-documentary about him in April 2020. He would’ve embarked on the Kid Krow World Tour with support from Bülow in 2020, however, it was also cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2020, the song “Heather” became popular on the social media platform TikTok, consequently becoming Kid Krow‘s sixth and final single. It made Gray his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 in his career, and further charted in the top 40 of countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. It became his most commercially successful single since “Maniac”, which achieved international mainstream hit radio success earlier that year. Gray performed “Heather” on both The Late Late Show with James Corden and The Today Show in October 2020 . He released the single “Fake” with American singer Lauv in October 2020.
2022–present: Superache
Between May 2021 and January 2022, Gray released the singles “Astronomy”, “People Watching”, “Telepath”, “Jigsaw”, “Memories” and “Yours”. He began his 2022 world tour in March, later concluding in June.On April 11, 2022, Gray announced that his second album Superache would be released on June 24, 2022. On April 15, 2022, he released the song “Memories”, and on May 19 he released the fifth single of the album, “Yours”, and revealed the track list. The album is 12 tracks and a total of 40 minutes long. Previously released single “Telepath” was not featured on the track list and remained as a non-album single. It was released on June 24, 2022. Alongside the album, the video for the single “Disaster” was also released, as well as Gray’s announcement of his fourth concert tour, the Superache Tour, which ran from September 2022 to March 2023. Speaking about the album, Gray said “Writing this album was miserable, and that’s why it ended up being a super-accurate depiction of my life”, and “It felt like scraping my ribs of any last bits of meat”. In April 2022, he appeared as surprise guest on Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour Tour in Vancouver and they did a cover of the Katy Perry song, “The One That Got Away”. On July 18, 2022, Gray sang the national anthem at the 2022 Major League Baseball Home Run Derby. His performance was widely criticized across social media, some comparing it to Fergie’s performance at the 2018 NBA All-Star Game.
In May 2023, Gray began posting teasers featuring grocery store imagery across his social media. The teasers were revealed to be in reference to the setting of a new music video that was released on May 19, 2023, accompanying the single “Never Ending Song”. Both the video and single marked a departure from Gray’s usual style and featured 80’s inspired visuals and sounds; Gray acknowledged the artistic shift as a “celebration of emotions” and “the beginning of a story”.
