THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE
Joseph Wear
On March 27, with much anticipation, Raye returned with her second studio album THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. This follows her first studio album My 21st Century Blues: a critically acclaimed smash hit and her first breakthrough as a household name. Raye’s story is not simply one of an artist making it big, but of grit and determination.
Signed to Polydor Records at the age of 17, Raye was stuck in the shadow of a studio who did not truly believe in her. Polydor continuously pushed back her debut album. In 2021, Raye left Polydor to become an independent artist and has flourished since. My 21st Century Blues is an impressive feat – in scope, in content, and in instrumentation, showcasing an unbelievable work ethic and self-belief. This quality continues into THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE, which takes every swing possible. If My 21st Century Blues was bold, its successor is audacious from the opening track to the closer, from its instrumentation to its lyricism and message.
“Allow me to set the scene: our story begins at 2:27am on a rainy night in Paris, cue the thunder,” Raye tells us at the start of “Intro: Girl Under the Grey Cloud.” The album’s opening track plays like the opening of a film, heightened by a quiet instrumentation that continues behind a spoken-word monologue. A violin swells over the course of the track, and is fully realised on “I Will Overcome.” Underpinned by a dark, pulsing beat, Raye creates a marriage that will define THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE, melding old-school big brass band jazz and blues with modern day R&B and dance-pop.
It is this fusion that allows a song like “Beware.. The South London Lover Boy.” to feel fresh and exciting. She uses her familiarity with the contemporary sounds that informed her early career in conjunction with vintage sounds, creating an album that is uniquely Raye. No other artists could put “Life Boat.”, a pulsing dance-beat with vocoder vocals, and “I Hate The Way I Look Today.”, with its jittery piano and scat vocal performance, directly next to each other and not have it feel jarring.
This is the path that Raye has paved for herself, and it proves fruitful on a track like “Click Clack Symphony.” In collaboration with Hans Zimmer, this track is naturally cinematic. Starting small, the track slowly adds layer upon layer of orchestration, mainly strings, giving way to the final thirty seconds which take off. This cinematic feel travels across the whole album, in a very Old Hollywood, vintage, soundstage musical sort of way. This sound mixed with the contemporary is the perfect canvas for Raye to paint her lyrics on, similarly universal while also speaking to modern-day issues.
THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE is centrally concerned with Raye’s own life experiences. Everything she describes within the album is building to a grand realisation that you can persevere through anything life throws at you, encouraging listeners to remain hopeful. This theme crops up on almost every song, but most strongly on “I Will Overcome.”, “Click Clack Symphony.”, “I Know You’re Hurting.”, “Joy.”, and “Happier Times Ahead.”
There is nothing subtle about her lyricism. Like the album’s title, it uses all caps to ensure you exit the listening experience feeling better equipped to handle life’s struggles. On another album, by another artist, this would perhaps become gimmicky very quickly. To what extent can the same idea be hammered into the listener before they start to feel like the hope is being shoved down their throat?
Somehow, it works. There’s enough genuine moments for it to feel like a real attempt from Raye to see the silver linings. “Fields.” is a standout in this regard. A collaboration with her Grandad, who was once an aspiring musician, “Fields” is a beautiful ode to unwavering familial love regardless of physical distance. The mix of this theatrical ‘everything will be alright’ lyricism, with genuine heartfelt moments, ultimately add to that whole soundstage musical quality present across the album. It is easier to buy into the hammy, unsubtle messaging found on the tracks when you remember that Golden Age Hollywood films adhered to a very strict “Happy Ending” formula. When you think about the album under those conditions, the story Raye is crafting makes much more sense. It is a narrative beginning with the low point and ending on the high. She ends the album by thanking every person who touched it, as the end credits.
On an Instagram live celebrating the release of THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE, Raye revealed that her third studio album will be called And Then She Fell in Love, and will only arrive after she has found said love. Raye is clearly an artist who enjoys crafting and planning every single aspect of her music, but I worry about the longevity of this manufacturing. That quality worked on this album, because that was the whole point of the narrative. Can she continue to create music with this iron-clad grip? It will be interesting to see.
In an era where artists seem to enjoy doing the bare minimum because they know fans will listen anyways, you have to applaud Raye for not playing it safe which, in my opinion, is much more admirable.
