Wishbone

Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2025

Conan Gray

When Conan Gray announced the arrival of his fourth studio album Wishbone, he shared in a statement that he wrote the album in secret. While touring his 2024 album Found Heaven, he would finish shows and sketch demos with zero stakes attached. He showed the songs to Dan Nigro, who helped Gray record his first album, Kid Krow, way back in 2020. The tracks, created with the sort of vulnerability only achievable when writing without an audience in mind, ended up becoming the bones of Wishbone, Gray’s cathartic exploration of his foray into adulthood.

With his signature blend of beautiful vocals and earworm melodies, Gray opens up his diary to sing about the way romance has changed his life—for better and for worse. The powerful “This Song” finds Gray admitting that it’s easier for him to sing about love for his unspecified partner than it is to utter the words face to face. “Romeo,” on the other hand, begins with a playful horn intro before slide guitar and a shuffling rhythmic groove betray the poison at the heart of his feelings: “You took away my will to live,” he admits.