Raye’s latest album
By Andrew Hutchinson · Staff Writer
2026 has already shown itself to be a great year for pop music.
Raye and her second album, “This Music May Contain Hope” is perfect proof of this. The album on paper is intriguing: 17 tracks, one hour and 13 minutes with features from Hans Zimmer and Al Green.
As a listening experience, Raye again is incredibly countercultural. The album has a deeply theatrical spoken intro and closes with a recognition of every individual who contributed to the album’s creation, showing her appreciation for the people who allowed her to have success as an independent artist. The album has four main “seasons,” but upon first listen is almost overwhelming due to an intentionally chaotic structure.
I’m still not sure what season is where, apart from the track “Winter Woman.” Nevertheless, the question of musical quality was never a worry. Raye’s record-breaking and award-winning first album, “My 21st Century Blues” featured some of the most impressive modern pop vocals, and her live performances were even more impressive than the recordings.
Tracks here like “Nightengale Lane.” once again show who the queen of vocal acrobatics really is right now, and just as before, every imaginable style of music seems to be included. Musical production is impeccable, with backing from the London Symphony that adds a complexity of sound no synthesizer will ever reproduce. Some notable tracks from the album to get a taste are “Beware…The South London Lover Boy,” “Joy” and “I Hate The Way I Look Today”.
Lyrically, unfortunately, this album is not as good as some of her other work. “Life Boat” doesn’t have the same brilliance as “Escapism” or “5 Star Hotel,” and a lot of songs are a vibe without being catchy. It appears as if this album has a minor case of Tortured Poet-itis; put simply, unmemorable lyrics that rely too heavily on poetry and complexity that nothing ever repeats.
“Click Clack Symphony” to me was the most obvious case of this, as the Zimmer music is dragged down by the listener’s struggle to find a chorus to sing. With more than 9000 lyrics in the album, it is not a catchy, TikTok-centric album, but the extensive scale of the project does seem extreme at times.
The jazz tracks have received criticism for their tempo and character change, including a jazz saxophone solo in “I Hate The Way I Look Today,” but I found those nuances attractive. As someone who loves experiencing live jazz and big band, Raye has managed to condense that spontaneity into her album and ought to be commended for such an artistic move.
As a whole, “This Music May Contain Hope” is a gem. It has received decent, but not stellar, reviews from music industry pundits, complaining about it being too ambitious, too strange and too long. However, Raye’s entire solo career is a rejection of the industry that imprisoned her and used her to make uninspiring tracks for others.
Her rejection of short songs, repeated choruses, bland electronic instrumentation and inclusion of diverse genres only exists because she is not following the formula that has erased diversity in pop music. Its success among listeners is further proof that Raye has made what listeners want, not what “industry experts” want. Her shows are selling out, the least listened songs on the album have 5 million streams in a week and a half and listener reviews online are far more positive than any other major album so far this year.
“This Music May Contain Hope” has understandable flaws, but its brightness shines through like the morning.
