RAYE - This Music May Contain Hope

Ambitious or self-indulgent? Whatever the critical consensus on the second album by Raye may be is perhaps beside the point: "This Music May Contain Hope" is, for better or worse, one of the musical events of the year.
Due to unusual and unforeseen circumstances, the definitive consecration of Rachel Agatha Keen never found its way onto our pages at the time, and many will perhaps consider this reflection, arriving six months after release, superfluous or belated. In truth, as chance would have it, through a strange series of coincidences, the new album by the London singer (English father, Swiss-Ghanaian mother) kept turning up in my daily listening, gradually claiming more space at the expense of yet another post-rock revelation and the ninetieth Ty Segall record.

At this point it becomes necessary, indeed vital, to try to grasp the ambiguous, dissonant charm of this long sonic odyssey lasting a full seventy-three minutes; but let's be clear from the outset that it's not the album's length that's excessive. Raye is another leading figure in contemporary music who has felt the need to shed worn-out artistic clichés. The artist, once signed to Polydor and known as a songwriter for Beyoncé, Rita Ora, Kylie Minogue, Jennifer Lopez and Charli XCX, has played the card of theatrical, cinematic grandiloquence in this search for identity — a need shared with other leading figures in contemporary pop-rock such as Rosalía and Olivia Rodrigo.
The defining trait here is undoubtedly the refusal of bite-sized listening. "This Music May Contain Hope" isn't a concept album, but it becomes impossible to imagine listening to it broken up into chapters: despite containing a string of songs that are genuine chart hits, the pieces interlock perfectly, offering an artistic profile richer and broader than one might imagine.
Whether it's a swinging, playful track worthy of a Disney screenplay ("I Hate The Way I Look Today") or a confession loaded with emotional turns ("I Know You're Hurting"), the prevailing sense is of a strong bond between the artist and the finished work, even at the expense of audience reception. Here, the word "daring" isn't a purely calculated gambit: Raye is fully aware of both her limits and her creative possibilities.

"This Music May Contain Hope" is, in the end, a dream come true — an imagined universe where the soul spirit of the powerful "Nightingale Lane" (on which the artist reaches for the vacant throne left by Amy Winehouse) coexists with the orchestral grandeur of Hans Zimmer (responsible for the elegant, sumptuous "Click Clack Symphony") and a sincere devotion to the great figures of the past, like Al Green, evoked here at the heart of the refined sensuality of "Goodbye Henry".
Reports say Raye's new album is divided into four sections mirroring the seasons; but it's also true that, if the seasons themselves no longer follow their natural rhythm, it's hardly fair to ask a simple record to honor that progression. So all the better, then, for the baroque-soul of "I Will Overcome", the 1960s R&B lightness of "Beware… The South London Lover Boy", the stylistic chaos of the coquettish "The WhatsApp Shakes", the lingering traces of the pop season concealed within the dark trip-hop weave of "Winter Woman", the blues scrape of "Fields", and even the explosive single "WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!" (if you don't find it effervescent and contagious, you're not being honest with yourself).

Raye's music is captivating, invigorating and dizzying, but it's thanks to genuine talent and remarkable vocal command that it all coheres into something artistically meaningful. It's also a plus that she chose to favor slow, reflective songs — stringing together a dozen potential hit singles would be well within the songwriter's nature — and it's precisely in this choice that the real generational leap takes place, forcing the listener to stop and lose themselves inside a work that rejects streaming's instant gratification in favor of the courage to claim its own space.

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27/09/2026