In the UK, even those who have never heard of RAYE have undoubtedly heard her songs. Signed to Polydor at 17, RAYE (real name Rachel Keen) spent several years writing topline after topline with EDM producers like David Guetta and Joel Corry, achieving six Top 20 hits that have soundtracked the oiled-up abs of many a Love Island pool party scene. Behind the scenes, she lent her songwriting skills to Charli XCX, Little Mix, and even Beyoncé (for “Bigger,” from The Lion King: The Gift). But Keen grew fed up writing songs that didn’t reflect her as a person. Her label refused to fund her full-length debut until she hit their benchmark for success, and she had become obsessed with tracking streaming data and chart positions, trapped in a cycle of one-off collaborations and EP releases. In June 2021, she decided to blow it all up. “I have been on a 4 ALBUM RECORD DEAL since 2014,” she tweeted, “and haven’t been allowed to put out one album.” Shortly afterwards, RAYE and Polydor went their separate ways.
My 21st Century Blues is both Keen’s long-awaited debut and her first project as an independent artist. In places, it’s a defiant riposte to an unequal industry, reintroducing RAYE as a solo star full of rage and candor, as on the strident and soulful lead single “Hard Out Here,” where she warns white male music executives to take their “pink chubby hands” off her. In others, it’s a patchwork of Keen’s influences as a jazz singer reared on Nina Simone and Jill Scott, and trained at the prestigious BRIT School (also attended by Amy Winehouse and Adele). Keen has said that the album is a compilation of songs that she’s waited years to release. That gives it a cut-and-paste collage feeling, and while it showcases the breadth and the peaks of her capabilities, My 21st Century Blues lacks a clear thematic throughline.
The album’s highlight is its biggest hit, the 070 Shake-featuring “Escapism,” which unexpectedly became RAYE’s first UK No. 1 and first Billboard Hot 100 entry in January 2023. It’s a slurred, snaking song about alcoholism and drugs, its protagonist trapped in a seemingly endless tripped-out Uber journey, snarling about the revengeful drunk sex she’s going to have with a stranger tonight. The structural weirdness recalls the twisted R&B stylings of Keen’s earliest EPs, rather than her floor-filling pop; the song’s sped-up version, which went viral on TikTok, only adds to its relentless anxiety. Addiction is taboo for female pop stars to sing about in general—“Look what they done to Amy,” Keen darkly noted in a recent profile—but it feels particularly charged in the hands of an artist best known for penning carefree hits about tequila shots and nightclub dancefloors.
Against these sprawling, innovative pop songs, the old-school sheen of tracks like “Thrill Is Gone” and “Worth It” looks dull. Keen’s powerhouse voice sounds robust paired with soft harmonies, a brass section, and funk guitars, but these retro stylings feel like her comfort zone. She’s far more thrilling when she steps outside it, as on the low-riding, semi-rapped “Flip a Switch” and “Five Star Hotels” (featuring fellow British R&B singer Mahalia). These songs have a seductive, sinister energy, and show how strong a lyricist Keen is when she zeroes in on scene-setting and storytelling. Elsewhere, Keen tackles huge topics with a broad brush: the restless “Environmental Anxiety” tries to cover so much lyrical ground—climate crisis, social media, Boris Johnson—that it occasionally feels glib.
Perhaps the album’s most interesting track is “Black Mascara,” which flips the script on the Ibiza-adjacent sound with which Keen first found success. It’s still a dance track, but with a hallucinogenic fluidity; lyrically, it takes a “selfish man” to task, and refuses to glamorize drinking to numb heartbreak. This feels like a real reclamation for an artist who once felt she was losing herself in writing impersonal, party-loving dance-pop. The problem with fighting back, however, is that you can get stuck in defense mode. Keen has refused to be molded by an industry that wants her to be something that she isn’t; on My 21st Century Blues, she’s still working out exactly what she wants to say instead.
