Raye

One Liner:  Pop singer with some dark lyrics

Wikipedia Genre: Pop, R&B

Home: London

Poster Position: Level 3 (12) 
Weekend Two Only.
Friday.

Thoughts: Strangely enough, I just read a short article about her this morning in Rolling Stone without realizing she was on the ACL lineup.  In the article, she was talking about the songwriting process for her biggest hit - "Escapism" - and how she flipped her normal songwriting method for this one and started with the beat before writing the words.  She and the beatmaker just cruised around blaring the beat in a car before she started writing.  Seems like a good move - 518.3 million streams is a buttload!

That video matches the song so well.  Just nails the out-of-control spirit of the lyrics.  Fuckin' bleak song though, even though the beat and singing is so catchy.  I'm not normally the guy for a pure pop song like that, but I like it.  Wikipedia says that the tune went viral on TikTok, which doesn't surprise me at all.  Her second-most popular track on Spotify right now is a sped up version of "Escapism," which the TikTokers like to use.

Rachel Agatha Keen.  I like Agatha as a name.  That name sounds dope.  In addition to her own tunes, she has written tracks for huge artists like Beyonce, Rihanna, David Guetta, and John Legend.  She's got a strong voice for sure - always fascinating to me when someone with a killer voice gets started just writing.  In my imagination, the folks are writers because they don't have the chops to sing.  But I think that is definitely wrong.

Two albums - 2020's Euphoric Sad Songs and 2023's My 21st Century Blues.  The new album is solid - I went through it s few times and feel like it holds up well as a complete unit.  Some things are funny, some are clever, and she really sounds good.  Some of her biggest tracks on Spotify are other folks' songs - David Guetta's "Beds" or Jax Jones' "You Don't Know Me" being prime examples.  The biggest other song that is on her first album is "Secrets," which heavily features someone named Regard.  373.9 million streams.

More like a Disclosure track than her newer tunes.  I definitely prefer the newer sound to the older one that she does on that 2020 album.  I surprisingly enjoy this stuff.  She's weekend two, so I sort of doubt I'd see her, but if nothing else major is going on, I might be interested.