The Curtis Waters alt-pop party train shows no signs of slowing down. Building off the North Carolina artist’s breakout 2020 album Pity Party, Waters hit us in January so fresh n’ so clean with “Doodoodoo”, a refreshing jolt of joy all about taking a bath (and after the previous year we all experienced, we welcomed the scrub). Now Waters throw it back to a pop vibe from a decade ago on the self-produced “Conceited,” which landed this past Friday (February 26).
“’Conceited’ is a song I made because I was listening to a lot of 2010s pop music,” Waters says. “I wanted to see what the 2021 Curtis waters version of that era would sound like. ‘Conceited’ is fun, upbeat and a little cheesy. The lyrics are about being conceited; it’s supposed to be a bit ironic.”
Pity Party found the North Carolina-based Nepal-native (with childhood stops in Germany and Calgary along the way) earning several hundred million streams and global acclaim. With its warped low-end bass and playful tongue-in-cheek nature, “Conceited” continues to expand on the LP’s already genre-bending sound.
“Pity Party is an album I started when I was at a very low point in my life when I dropped out of college and moved back home last year,” Curtis adds. “I had a lot of time to think about all my struggles growing up as a brown kid in North America dealing with mental illnesses and the guilt that came with it. It’s about getting better at coping with life. I get a lot of brown kids messaging me telling me I make them feel like they can do anything too, which is awesome. Hopefully people can listen and feel less alone. That would make all the difficulties worth it.”
Press play on “Conceited” below.