Conan Gray - Found Heaven [Yellow]

For his third album, Conan Gray stopped writing bedroom confessionals and started writing eighties anthems. Found Heaven, released in April 2024, trades the muted acoustic melancholy of his earlier work for gated drums, sheets of synth and choruses built for arenas — a full-body swerve into new wave and pop-rock that nobody quite saw coming.

The reference points are worn proudly. "Never Ending Song" is pure Cyndi Lauper bounce, "Alley Rose" is a piano ballad with a Meat Loaf-sized climax, "Lonely Dancers" and "Killing Me" chase the same neon-lit heartbreak that made George Michael and Tears for Fears radio staples, and the title track opens the record with a choir and a shot of genuine drama. Max Martin collaborator Ilya, plus Greg Kurstin and Dan Nigro, help build the thing out to widescreen scale without sanding off Gray's writing, which is still sharp, wounded and specific underneath all the reverb.

It is a record about wanting more — more feeling, more permission, more room — and it sounds like it. Thirteen tracks, no filler, and a real argument that Gray belongs in the conversation with the biggest pop songwriters of his generation.

This is the yellow translucent "Found Heaven" edition on Republic Records, housed in a single-pocket jacket with a printed die-cut inner sleeve. The standard-edition color pressing of a big, ambitious pop record.