“Maniac” by Conan Gray, Monday, September 2, 2024
With the release of Found Heaven, Conan Gray has been embracing a glam rock era. Listening to his two previous studio albums, there are hints at the future Max Martin-produced third album, but the singer seems to be more comfortable with the slower lyric-driven real instrument songs. But much like the other Dan Nigro-produced artists, such as Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan, the genre only appears to be a tool to help artists present themselves in their most authentic ways. It’s not a new concept in pop music and it’s becoming more and more common. Some call it the death of genre. For Conan Gray, one of those moments is on his first album Kid Krow, on the song that has been called a “bedroom pop banger,” “Maniac.”
TELL THEM YOU HATE ME AND DATED ME JUST FOR LAUGHS. “Maniac” was Conan Gray’s third single from Kid Krow. The genre seems to follow the subject matter of the song. The lyrics of the songs suggest that the speaker’s ex has been partying all night, so underneath the poppier-than-usual Gray song, is a club beat. The song masterfully builds a story about a crazy lover who has turned on the speaker. This person has turned to their “rat pack” to defame the speaker, saying he “is trash.” What makes the subject of the song so dangerous, though, is their ability to claim that the speaker is actually the “psychopath” by calling him a “stalker and a watcher.” Gray has said that the song is actually based on one of the singer’s exes. He told Apple Music that he wrote the song in the shower after receiving a text message from someone he hadn’t talked to for “months.” The other person accused him, saying, “You’re so manipulative and crazy and you’ve been telling all my friends this and you’ve been saying this and this and that.” Gray released the song around Halloween in 2019 along with the music video, which was themed after a zombie movie and co-starred The End of the F***ing World’s Jessica Barden as a girl whose ex-boyfriends have come to attack the two who are movie theater workers just before midnight on October 30th.
THAT I’M SUCH A STALKER, A WATCHER, A PSYCHOPATH. The term "gaslighting" has been around since the mid-20th century, but it became an everyday word in more recent years, especially in the 2010s and 2020s. The word "gaslighting" comes from the 1938 play Gas Light and its subsequent 1944 film adaptation Gaslight. In the story, a husband manipulates his wife into doubting her own sanity by making small changes to their environment (like dimming the gas lights) and insisting that she is imagining things. The term "gaslighting" began to be used metaphorically to describe psychological manipulation where a person makes someone question their reality. The word was mostly used academically until the 2010s when it started trending on social media. The word was further popularized when journalists confronted President Donald Trump with an obvious lie. Today, the word feels overused, but that is actually a victory for the victims of gaslighters. Because of the word’s popularity, even if it is overused, victims can more easily identify the behavior. Furthermore, social movements, such as #MeToo have given light to patterns of gaslighters. The power of having a word to define an experience gives the victim more power. And while people will continue to gaslight and fall for gaslighting, the chances of identifying the practice are raised with public awareness of the practice. Hopefully, in 2024, we’ll be better at telling those toxic maniacs goodbye.
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