RAYE closes her debut album by thanking her nearest and dearest. Celebrating the buddies, household and collaborators who supported the making of the report, she explains on ‘Fin’: “I’ve waited seven years for this second, and eventually ‘My twenty first Century Blues’ is now out without end.”
It additionally marks the end result of the arduous battle the 25-year-old has confronted to launch her first full-length album. After releasing her debut EP ‘Welcome To The Winter’ in 2014, RAYE penned a cope with Polydor the identical yr aged 17. Since then, there have been additional solo releases (together with a number of EPs and 2020 mini-album ‘Euphoric Unhappy Songs’), collaborations with chart-dominating dance whizzes (Jax Jones, David Guetta, Disclosure) and co-writes for the likes of Beyoncé and Mabel. But RAYE’s personal debut album didn’t materialise, and, by June 2021, she’d had sufficient. “I’ve been on a FOUR-ALBUM RECORD DEAL since 2014! And [I] haven’t been allowed to place out one album,” she tweeted. “I’m executed being a well mannered pop star. I wish to make my album now, please that’s all I need.” Three weeks later, she bought her want: “Right this moment, I’m talking to you as an unbiased artist,” she told her Twitter followers.
Since then, RAYE has been releasing music that feels unapologetically her personal. There’s the electrifying, affirmative ‘Exhausting Out Right here’, which sees the singer take intention on the patriarchal music trade: “All of the white males CEOs, fuck your privilege / Get your pink chubby fingers off my mouth, fuck you assume that is?” The euphoric ‘Black Mascara’, in the meantime, demonstrates RAYE’s knack for penning floor-filling dance hits, albeit by switching issues up from her earlier membership anthems by coupling darker, effervescent beats with devastating lyrics (“I’m right here now fucked up, pondering this why I’m out right here sinking in these darkish nights“).
The album’s actual triumph, although, is the trip-hop-influenced, 070 Shake-featuring ‘Escapism’. The slinky single first dropped in October earlier than regularly climbing the charts, hitting the summit final month to present RAYE her first UK Quantity One single. “As robust because it’s been, within the darkest of occasions, it’s the final word validation,” she informed NME of the victory.
The remainder of ‘My twenty first Century Blues’ follows swimsuit from these lead singles. Gritty, trustworthy lyrics, delivered by RAYE’s attractive voice, are paired with strange genre-spanning instrumentals. ‘Oscar Profitable Tears’ is a searing takedown of a crumbling, poisonous relationship that’s constructed upon swooning strings and cinematic piano licks that help its creator’s powerhouse voice. The stripped-back ‘Mary Jane’ transports you to a jazzy speakeasy by its biting guitar riffs and delicate rhythm part, whereas the funk-laced ‘Price It’ could possibly be a misplaced Silk Sonic monitor. The brass-heavy ‘The Thrill Is Gone’ is a wonderful fashionable soul providing, its lush instrumental preparations evoking Amy Winehouse’s ‘Again To Black’.
Lyrically, RAYE doesn’t pull any punches. ‘Environmental Nervousness’, which borrows spaced-out manufacturing tips from Coldplay, sees her sing: “Come on youngsters, it’s time to vote / Boris Johnson’s sniffing coke / All the kids are depressed / Not the long run we had hoped.” ‘Physique Dysmorphia’ tackles her personal troublesome relationship along with her physique, whereas ballad ‘Ice Cream Man’ is a brutally trustworthy account of an abuse of energy the place RAYE recounts her expertise of sexual assault by the hands of a producer: “And I used to be 7, was 21, was 17, and was 11 / It took some time to grasp what my consent means.”
RAYE not too long ago stated that such daring and courageous declarations wouldn’t have been launched had she nonetheless been signed to a significant label. Granted her artistic independence, although, the hard-fought ‘My twenty first Century Blues’ is unequivocally RAYE from begin to end.
Particulars
Launch date: February 3
Report label: RAYE / Human Re Sources
