My 21st Century Blues by Raye
by Lana Fleischli
This review is long overdue. I listened to My 21st Century Blues a few months ago, but I have been very scatterbrained recently, so I didn’t have the time to sit and write about it. However, I kept listening and re-listening to it because (I’m going to use a cliché metaphor,) it is like peeling an onion back. More and more layers reside under it.
On first listen, I liked how it started– an introduction. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love a conceptual album. I love a full story or a consistent theme or tying factor. I’m a writer, I love a story what can I say?
But this wasn’t just any conceptual album, because it isn’t necessarily one story. It’s Raye’s (AKA Rachel Keen’s) life, opinions, and beliefs. There was no doubt in my mind that the production on the album was incredibly well-crafted. Even so, Keen’s voice was the showstopper. A powerful and strong presence, her voice and her emotions perpetuated in her singing really make the album stand out.
While the music itself was beautiful, the lyricism throughout the album invoked a mixed feeling within me. I felt like a friend was trauma-dumping on me, and all I could do was sit back and want to cry because I have no idea how to help. Then there were times that her words were resilient and uplifting– words that gave me hope.
The album starts with her talking about her own personal struggles, but illustrated in such a dark and enchanting way. She romanticizes weed, codine, and wine, writing from the perspective of the addict within her. It’s haunting and sends chills up my spine, because listening, you can tell how much she wants it– how much she is willing to give up for a moment of serenity. It was painful to listen to that song.
The song that truly stood out of me though, was “Ice Cream Man”. A song about being a woman in music and being taken advantage of sexually. The way she paints the memory so clearly and then describes her abuser as the Ice Cream Man with “ice cold hands,” inflcits within the listener, the exact feeling she felt. The song then turns into a melancholy uplifting song about being a woman and how she has persevered to where she is now.
The latter-half of the album is more general. Though still personal, they evoke less of personal story and more empathy with everyone else. Beauty standards are something that I feel like most people deal with. Struggling with self-perception has, unfortunately, become part of the human experience. She talks about about climate change– a real kicker. Not personal at all, because any sane person is worried about the Earth being polluted and destroyed. It makes me feel useless.
The album is painful and uplifting all at once. It struck something in me. I would wonder, “is this sheer amount of brutal honesty lyrically gratifying? Is it cheesy?”. I don’t think it is. I feel that Keen said exactly what she needed to say. She doesn’t need the fluff. It is terrifying and honest. She states the fears I have for our future; the ones that make my stomach turn. No fluff necessary.