On August 25, 2023, Conan Gray released his new painful, yet heart-felt single, “Winner.” Gray worked with producer Greg Kurstin on this song, who has worked with other big artists, such as Adele, Gorillaz, and Sia. “Winner” was first teased on his alternate TikTok account on July 27, 2023, and later on his main TikTok and on his Instagram, on August 3, 2023. Conan continued to post multiple TikToks on both of his accounts and on his Instagram. On the day of its release, “Winner” accumulated 1.34 million streams, surpassing his previous single, “Never Ending Song”.
Since the release of the first snippet on his main account, many fans started comparing the song to another song of his, “Family Line”, from his 2022 album, Superache. “Family Line” talks about the familial problems Conan faced throughout his childhood, and “Winner” follows this experience. Gray agreed with this statement on his second TikTok account, saying “y’all r calling this family line 2.0 and u aren’t wrong”.
Fans have also been comparing the song to “Generation Why”, from his debut EP, Sunset Season, noticing the similarities between the bike he can be seen riding in the snippets for “Winner” and the bike used in the music video for “Generation Why”, many fans even believing it to be the same bike.
His Instagram post about the release of “Winner” revealed some insight into how he felt about the song. In the caption of the post he says, “i’ve spent my whole life running from any memory of anything that ever hurt me. But i’ve begun to see that there is a certain freedom in recognizing that you’ve been hurt. I hope this song helps you find a little bit of that freedom, love you.”
Additionally, in a press release, Conan said “I wrote this song at 2am. Everything at the piano just spilled out all at once. It was a moment where I finally felt like, ‘Fine. Great job. You did it. You hurt me more than anybody ever could hurt me.’ And it oddly felt nice. I see now that there is a certain freedom that comes from recognizing that you’ve been hurt. In no longer running, and just facing the fact that ‘you win. You hurt me.’ I hope this song helps people find a little piece of that freedom.”
Conan is yet to release the music video for “Winner” or give us a release date, but many fans are excitedly awaiting its release.