Ravyn Lenae: Blue Island review – from Suicide to Squarepusher, grunge to Janet, a pop one-off plots her unique path

It sometimes seems like no musical success in the 2020s is allowed to pass without some degree of online controversy. There are accusations that the artist in question is an “industry plant” – a phrase which, as far as can be discerned, can basically be applied to anyone with a manager or a label deal – or that there’s something deceptive about the way in which they’ve been promoted, or that they’re possessed of some other form of moral bankruptcy that reflects not merely on the performer but the people who like them. Which brings us to Love Me Not, an ostensibly harmless 2024 track by Chicago singer-songwriter Ravyn Lenae.

After enjoying a burst of online virality, it became a huge hit single, making the Top 5 on both sides of the Atlantic. Taken from Bird’s Eye, an album that also featured collaborations with Childish Gambino and Ty Dolla $ign, its blend of retro-soul styling, distorted guitar arpeggios and infernally catchy chorus was noticeably poppier than Lenae’s previous work: it came with a remix that featured British bedroom-pop star Rex Orange County. You could understand why fans of the glitchy, abstract R&B found on 2015’s EP Moon Shoes, or of her more neo soul-flavoured debut album, 2022’s Hypnos, might consider it a straightforward bid for mainstream acceptance. But you’d argue against it necessitating an online interrogation that, Lenae has suggested, involved not just “picking apart what kind of music I make” but “questioning my identity and Blackness”.

Said interrogation seems to have prompted a degree of doubling-down. The first thing you hear on Blue Island, as opener Handle gets under way, is another earworm pop chorus, followed by a squeal of feedback and a distorted electric guitar arpeggio that feels faintly grungy or, more specifically, that recalls the early 90s moment where grunge began having an effect on the sound of mainstream artists. It’s followed by Familiar Dreams, retro pop-soul that sounds almost exactly like what you’d expect of a well-turned follow-up to Love Me Not. Meanwhile, Lenae’s list of inspirations for the album features not just Santigold and Janet Jackson but Blondie, the Cranberries, the Sundays and, most surprisingly, Martin Rev. If Wish You Well definitely sounds like a charming gene-splice between the Cranberries and the soft-hued Janet Jackson of Runaway or That’s The Way Love Goes, it’s a little harder to discern the musical influence of Rev’s confrontational electronic punk duo Suicide on Blue Island. But perhaps it’s present in more of a spiritual capacity, Suicide having relentlessly pursued their own artistic path in the face of some fairly concerted efforts by the public to get them to stop.

There are certainly a lot of lyrics here that present as love songs but seem suspiciously like they’re about something else: “I’m leaving without you”; “breaking those walls … can never be wrong if you don’t go where everybody goes”; “all those limits to your pleasure keep me climbing”. And there’s palpable glee in the album’s sudden stylistic shifts. The 90s R&B-infused Never Let Me Go and Babygirl rub up against In & Out’s sparkly alt-rock; Potential proceeds along prettily enough in pop-ballad form before it unexpectedly erupts into a squall of guitar noise and a ferocious, juddering rhythm that sounds remarkably like Squarepusher or Aphex Twin. You could suggest its shifts carry a hint of the streaming playlist so eclectic it only really makes sense to the person who made it, but better that than an artist audibly chasing currently popular trends. And Blue Island isn’t as jarring as that suggests, partly because of the unifying power of Lenae’s voice – a lovely, breathy soprano – but largely because the writing is buffed to a state of pop perfection.

Its hit rate isn’t perfect. There are a couple of moments among the 14 tracks that feel a bit boilerplate: an acoustic duet with Dominic Fike, Reputation, is pleasant enough but could be the work of pretty much anyone; the electro-influenced beat of Saturday Night is great, the song itself not so much. And it could maybe have done with a couple more moments like Potential, when Lenae metaphorically lets her freak flag fly – not least because when she does, it’s hugely exciting, as on the chaotic, distorted closer Let Us In. It’s another song that seems to obliquely address the controversy caused by Love Me Not – you could read its lyrics as a plea for acceptance for artists that decline to fit a standard mould – but, in truth, Blue Island has already answered Ravyn Lenae’s critics long before it appears: its collage of styles makes for an original, idiosyncratic pop album, something worth celebrating rather than picking apart for ulterior motives.

This week Alexis listened to

The Durutti Column – Your Shadow at Morning
Beneath its TS Eliot-inspired title lurks a sun-dappled but melancholy drift of electric and acoustic guitar: Vini Reilly doing what Vini Reilly does exceptionally beautifully.

Reporting from The Guardian contributed to this story.