There is a new wave of pop singers rising to the forefront of mainstream music. With talent coming from everywhere these days, their styles and stories are varied and represent the change in generations. Conan Gray is an American singer-songwriter and former YouTuber from California who is one of these new pop stars. Beginning his career uploading vlogs, covers, and original songs to YouTube as a teenager, Gray signed a record deal with Republic Records in 2018 and released his debut EP, Sunset Season, later that year. Since then he’s had hit songs "Maniac" and "Heather", and 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. The song “Checkmate” was the first single off that album and was released on June 26th, 2019.
Conan Gray wears black high top chucks in this music video.
The song is about a toxic relationship between two people, with the title acting as a chess reference. The other person treated Conan as one of his pawns, but they didn’t realize that he’s actually the King. Gray has said this was a very emotional song for him to write, and that he "ugly cried out" the song in under five minutes. The song also shares some of the musical flares of the works of Gray’s friend Olivia Rodrigo. This makes sense when you consider they are both produced by Dan Nigro. They share a raw emotional element, but Gray never delves into the pop-rock world Rodrigo currently lives in.
Just letting it all out in a cathartic scream.
The music video opens with Gray sitting in the bed of the back of a car while wearing black high top chucks and talking on the phone with his ex. He then proceeds to spend the rest of the video falling deeper and deeper into the revenge fallacy, becoming madder and madder. Gray stated that he “tried to get as much of [his] cathartic revenge out” in the music video. Aesthetically, the video’s setting and effects try to harken back to the late 1990s and early 2000s. This does up the creepy factor a bit more as things get darker in the video. This music video does the job of showing the anger and rage of the song while producing some cool visuals.
Can you hear me now?
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