Hey everyone.,
For todays blog post I thought I would do an album review to Raye's first album as an independent album called 'My 21st Century Blues'. It's a complilation of 13 new tracks which were released at the end of February 2023. The album is a mix of emotions but it's inredible how an artist can be so brave in sharing their music with the world, that has some interesting and quite brave storylines.
The first track on the album 'Oscar Winning Tears' is a nice introduction song for what's to come, where she sings the line 'thought you were the man' and asks why he was lying and why he was crying about the situation that he went through after Raye must have ended things with him. The next song 'Hard Out Here' follows the same theme as she said that 'the truth ain't pretty my dear' and says that she's from ends, but she's an actor, and probably didn't reveal her true feelings in every situation that she's been involved in. The 4th song on the album 'Escapism' featuring 070 Shake is probably my favourite song on the album, but it speaks about one of her experiences when she was out in town with people who used to do drugs, so speaks about the diffuculties of being in bad places with people she shouldn't have been there with, and how she's managed to move forward from those times.
Song number 7 called 'Ice Cream Man' is a big revelation as she compares an ice cream man with a music director who tried to pressure her into sexual fun after saying through DM's that he enjoyed her music and wanted to write with her. She says that 'everything you did left me in a ruin, and I didn't say anything, that proves it... I'm a woman'. It was a difficult song to hear because I'm not sure it revealed all of the aspects of that encounter, but it's one of things of not always believing what people tell you, but also being brave enough no matter who you are, to try and get out of those situations as quickly as possible. Raye admits that she's a 'very f*cking brave strong woman' adding that she 'fell into some things that weren't healthy' which is a good reflection to have now, and maybe one of the reasons she also wanted to break away from her management at the time who may not have liked her singing about such deep and confidential types of songs.
'Body Dysmorphia' is a song where Raye questioned her body and whether she liked or didn't like parts of herself. She said that she often 'let my fingers pinch my skin' and 'I hate the way my face is square'. She also discussed wearing baggy clothes to avoid having to worry about how her arms looked with sleeves, and preferred the lights to be off as she didn't want to take off her clothes. Raye also said 'I hold my knees and squeeze my weight' which suggests she wasn't comfortable in her own skin and tried to hide herself. The next song 'Environmental Anxiety' is a song where she reflects on the 21st century hobbies that people have and that 'all the children are depressed' and 'young girls are not safe at home...scrolling on their phone'. Raye also states that 'we don't need self motivation, the robots will take all of our jobs', which maybe could be seen as a comedic line, because robots won't be able to take control or help us with our emotions, but they seem to be everywhere and doing everything else. There are some spoken lyrics towards the end of the song asking why drunk people are drunk, 'rich people get rich and the rest get sunk' and our country leaders are everything 'ist' and homophobic and think that we don't notice. She explained that the only time we will all be holding hands, is when we're all dead...which is not a nice though, but it seems like people would rather just critisize eachother than get along.
In the next song 'Five Star Hotels', Raye seems to explain that she has been seeing other guys and knows that this man has been sleeping around, and says that he should come and visit her in her 5 star hotel in Mauritius, 'baby come to my hotel, don't fight it', as she knows that they might be right for eachother. 'Worth It' is Raye stating that maybe this new lover can make all of the bad experiences she's ever had, worth it, adding whether he cold 'be my glass of wine' adding that she wants to see the sun rise with this person. She's released this song in a slow and fast paced version but it's a nice track. The final song is called 'Buss It Down' which is almost a song about self love and admiration, with Raye explaining that she's found some songs to do slow dancing to on the kitchen floor, until she finds somebody that she can do it with. She said 'I'm trying to prioritise who I grind for, who I take my time for', and added that I've 'got my girls by my side until I find one', suggesting that it's girls before boyfriends and she's moving into a new era where love isn't the most important thing anymore.
To end the album, she has a 30 second audio outro where she said that for everyone who's got this far through the album, she wanted to 'thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening' and added that she couldn't do this without her mum, beautiful sisters, dad and Tia, and had been waiting 7 years to release this album. She finished with the words 'Until next time, Raye'. It was an incredible album to listen to, and I'm very excited to see what music she produces in the future as this is only the beginning.
Hopefully you enjoyed my music review, and until my next blog post...Goodbye!
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