ALBUM REVIEW: CONAN GRAY - WISHBONE (15/08/25)
Only a year after Found Heaven and a few months from the reissue of his debut, Kid Krow, Decomposed (5 Year Anniversary), Conan Gray releases his 4th studio album. Wishbone is an emotional punch in the gut, as the former Kid Crow takes us on a bittersweet journey of love and loss, recounting the painful final acts of a doomed relationship, in what is possibly his most mature record to date.
The title indicates a V shaped bone found in birds and dinosaurs that ancient civilisations used as magical objects to predict the future. In today’s culture, it is often still used to make wishes, but it has also come to symbolise hope for the future, good luck and new beginnings. As Conan explains in an interview, it’s one of the only wishing rituals that requires two people. Every other wishing thing, like throwing a penny into a well or blowing a dandelion, is a solo experience. But with a Wishbone, it’s two people actively taking this moment to be like, “I might get my wish and you might get nothing, and let’s take a bet on each other and just agree to do this even though one of us is bound to lose.”
As always, Gray introduces us to the record in story form with ‘The Actor’, a track about hidden love and how difficult it can be to gauge the other person’s emotions when everything happens in secret. In the end, the relationship is over before it even begun, and the singer chastises his lover for choosing to hide away a part of themselves from everyone else. The bridge’s lyrics, “If you ever cared, well, I wouldn't know / Blame it on a bad manic episode”, not only emphasise this but also seems to reference one of his past hits, ‘Maniac’, which dealt with a similar concept.
‘This Song’ was the first single off the record, announced alongside the music video on May 29th, 2025. The track is one of the most romantic and hopeful of Gray’s discography, as well as one of his most honest: he openly talks about the uncertainty and vulnerability of falling in love, and the fear of being true, especially as a queer person.
The music video features two young men, Marlo and Brando from Conan’s previous song ‘The Story’, played by Conan himself and Corey Fogelmanis, whose tumultuous relationship we get to follow through every following music video from the artist.
‘Vodka Cranberry’ is a heartbreaking and raw depiction of love after a breakup, expanding the plot with its own music video, and is followed by a very different vibe with ‘Romeo’, a grungy tune where after the sadness, the singer experiences the anger of realising the person you were with was not who you thought and did not deserve you.
In ‘My World’, Conan realises the man who hurt him is stuck in his life of lies as he, on the other hand, is free to enjoy his own. This also marks one of the first times the singer references his own sexuality, which has been speculated upon ever since his debut, with a line in the chorus “it’s my world and it’s my life / it’s my girl and it’s my guy / i’ll kiss them if i might like”, a possible dig about people trying to label him when he has publicly chosen not to do so himself.
‘Class Clown’ is more focused on introspection as it delves deeper into themes introduced in the previous song, where the writer reflects on his self-image and how it relates to his past and other people’s perception of it, and consequently of him.
Being ‘Nauseous’ in love is usually represented in a positive light with “having butterflies”, but in this track, Conan describes the feeling of having a crush as something physically painful and potentially dangerous, comparing holding someone’s hand to a grizzly trap, and the lightness of falling in love, that should feel like flying, feeling more like falling through the floor.
‘Caramel’, with its music video marking the third in the Brando/Wilson saga, dropped as the same time as the album, comes back to the difficulty of truly leaving someone you loved behind, even when you rationally know it is the right thing to do. Despite the bad memories, there are good ones that drag the singer back, smells and tastes, like the titular caramel bringing him right back to the relationship.
These same feelings are explored in ‘Connell’, but the anger and rockier tunes of ‘Caramel’ are left behind in favour of a guitar-driven ballad where Gray recounts all the reasons why the relationship had to end. In ‘Sunset Tower’, we keep following the story as the singer tries to deal with having to hear about the other person moving on.
Slower ballad ‘Eleven Eleven’ romanticises fate, with Conan turning to “wishbones and clovers and numbers from heaven” to find a way to get back to his former love. In the closing track, ‘Care’, we are left with the knowledge that, despite having finally realised the relationship is over and that is much better for everyone involved, the singer can’t help but still care.
Wishbone out now via Republic Records, available on all streaming platforms.