RAYE’s maximalist masterpiece is the hope we need
3/31/202643 min
RAYE names Amy Winehouse and Edith Piaf as her artistic predecessors on the opening tracks of new album This Music May Contain Hope. Both died young, undone by the same darkness they sang about, and placing them there reads as a dare to herself. The album that follows is her attempt to find a different ending: a 17-track, 75-minute work featuring Al Green, Hans Zimmer, the London Symphony Orchestra, and over 80 collaborators, structured around the four seasons as a journey from autumn despair toward summer light. Every genre shift on the record, from Vivaldi's Winter to post-bop jazz combo to gospel choir, serves that arc: small emotional truths get cinematic treatment, most strikingly when the click of heels on pavement becomes the central rhythm of an anthem about getting dressed to go out with friends. The episode serves as a field guide to the album's vast musical language, and to the argument that hope is something you have to build, genre by genre, track by track. Links: Newsletter, YouTube RAYE – "WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!" Nat King Cole – "Let There Be Love" Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – "Summertime" RAYE (ft. 070 Shake ) – "Escapism." RAYE – "Intro: Girl Under the Grey Cloud." RAYE – "I Will Overcome." Edith Piaf – "La Vie en Rose" RAYE – "Nightingale Lane." RAYE – "Fin." RAYE – "The WhatsApp Shakespeare." Mark Ronson & RAYE – "Suzanne" RAYE – "I Hate The Way I Look Today." RAYE – "Winter Woman." Vivaldi – "The Four Seasons: Winter" RAYE (ft. Hans Zimmer) – "Click Clack Symphony." RAYE (ft. Al Green) – "Goodbye Henry." Al Green – "Love and Happiness" Aretha Franklin – "Rock Steady" RAYE – "Skin & Bones." Fred Wesley and The J.B.'s (ft. James Brown) – "Damn Right I Am Somebody" RAYE – "Beware.. The South London Lover Boy." The Supremes – "You Can't Hurry Love" Iggy Pop – "Lust for Life" Jet – "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" Mark Ronson (ft. Amy Winehouse) – "Valerie" Charles Albert Tindley – "I'll Overcome Someday" Prince - “Purple Rain" Beyoncé – "Love on Top" RAYE (ft. Amma & Absolutely) – "Joy." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
[phone ringing] Oh, hey. [muffled speaking] Sorry, love to chat, but I'm busy shopping all the rollbacks some more at Walmart. [muffled speaking] Grab a what? Cancel that. I gotta grab these big savings on the Walmart app, online, and in store, like right now. [muffled speaking] See who? Ugh, nope, unavailable. The only thing I wanna see are the prices just lowered on tech home and all my must-haves. [muffled speaking] Wait, you wanna shop Walmart with me?
Speaker 10:26
Yeah.
Speaker 00:27
All righty, I think I can fit you in.
Speaker 20:29
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Charlie Harding· Host1:00
Nate, I've got a challenge for you.
Nate Sloan· Host1:01
I'm always up for a good challenge.
Charlie Harding· Host1:03
I'm gonna play you a song, and then I want you to read me the lyrics.
Speaker 5· Soundbite1:05
I would like a ring, I would like a ring. I would like a diamond ring on my wedding finger. I would like a big and shiny diamond that I could wave around and talk and talk about it. And when the day is here, forgive me, God, that I could ever doubt it. Until death I do, I do, I do, I do. Is he about, about, about it? This man is testing me. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Help me, help me, help me, Lord, I need you to tell me, baby.
Charlie Harding· Host1:23
All right, I texted you the lyrics, and if you could, uh, recitation at tempo, please.
Unknown speaker1:29
[clears throat]