Conan Gray, a pop star who has gained the endearing admiration of over 27 million monthly listeners on Spotify around the world, has smoothly stepped into his newest aesthetic era, with four ’80s-inspired tracks so far, one of them being his newest release, “Lonely Dancers.”
The music video and song itself were released on Feb. 8, 2024, and senior Taylor Williams remarked, “I liked the lyrics, [because] like, there’s a lot of people our age that struggle with loneliness.”
Both the song itself and the music video have garnered quite a large number of views and streams, with 4,433,799 streams on Spotify to date and 1.3 million views on YouTube.
Williams’s favorite scene from the music video is when Gray puts a record of his song into the record player and the dancefloor freezes, therefore allowing him to steal some of the people’s attire, like a jacket and a hat, and mess with some of them, like popping their gum or placing his glasses on someone’s head.
The Song
I really enjoyed this song, from the emotional cries in the vocals to the smooth, poppy production that punches through with brilliant bass. This new era of his has been produced by the profound Max Martin, ILYA, and Oscar Holter, new faces for Gray to be working with.
The song begins with an older style of synth, and then the listener is hit with striking vocals reminiscent of peak ’80s nostalgia. We then experience deeper layers of the production, with a booming tap of the drums falling into an effortless beat.
Next, listeners get a disperse in the synth as the song slides into softer vocals, reminiscent of the sound all Conan Gray fans are familiar with. Although softer, the projection is another new detail in this new era. His voice seems more powerful, and more passionate with each word he sings. After the same pattern repeats, we get a lovely bridge, with more striking vocals, where he draws out the notes at the end of his phrases perfectly and eventually hits the listener with a crescendo dispersing back into the chorus.
Overall, this song is quite phenomenal, and the more you listen to it, the more you develop an appreciation for the complex production style and the work put into achieving such stunning vocals.
The music video for this song fits the theme of the song itself perfectly, with homages to the 80s throughout. When Gray walks into the 80s-themed bar, he goes to a record player featuring all of his own songs, and then, of course, picks the song “Lonely Dancers.” This was a nice touch and bridged the 80s nostalgia with the nostalgia of his own fans as they got to reminisce about his older music.
The people in the music video also freeze when he plays the song, so he messes with them a bit, and this silly scene sets up the lively music video perfectly.
The lighting when he takes the stage is also superb, and the overall direction of this music video was executed profoundly.
This song is a spectacular listen, featuring stellar production quality with punchy vocals to complement it. You won’t regret listening to this song and enjoying the astonishing visuals in the music video.
This is my first year publishing articles on 42fifty. I am in my senior year at Oswego High School. I am involved in a variety of extracurriculars, including WE Club, the Muslim Student Association, the Oswego High Coalition, and the National English Honors Society.
I love your A&E writing style!