If Raye was misplaced for phrases when she gained her first Brit award of the night, track of the yr, then – apart from begging the music {industry} to award songwriters factors on grasp recordings – she had actually virtually run out of them by the point she tearfully collected her sixth award of the evening for album of the yr, which noticed her “ugly crying on nationwide tv”. The British pop star had already damaged the report for essentially the most nominations in a single yr with seven nods – two of them within the class for finest track, plus the latterly introduced finest songwriter. Then she broke the report for essentially the most wins in a single yr, a joint title beforehand held by Harry Kinds, Adele and Blur with 4 apiece. Kinds’s 2023 sweep was a celebration of his international dominance; whereas Raye hasn’t achieved wherever close to the identical industrial or worldwide attain, her near-clean sweep displays the artistic innovation of her debut album, final yr’s My twenty first Century Blues, a report whose brutal candour and skilful flexing between rap, R&B, dance, pop, soul and massive balladry make her a worthy peer to this yr’s finest worldwide artist SZA – one other genre-straddler – and to former British solo feminine artist winner Amy Winehouse. Raye, AKA 26-year-old Rachel Eager, wasn’t recognised in any respect on the Grammys final month, making her really feel like a very homegrown success story – though her victory additionally represents a big failure for the British music {industry} that couldn’t recognise her expertise throughout the seven years that she was signed to Polydor.
In 2021, Raye posted a tearful plea to social media saying that her label had denied her the chance to make even one of many 4 albums on her deal, and that dozens of what she thought of potential hits – amongst them the No 1 single Escapism, tonight named because the yr’s finest track – have been languishing on a tough drive. As an alternative, she was trapped in guest-vocalist purgatory, singing on generic bangers by the likes of David Guetta and Jax Jones. The historical past of aggrieved feminine pop stars agitating in opposition to their labels has not traditionally ended nicely – simply ask Britney Spears and Sky Ferreira – but astonishingly, Polydor freed her from the deal and Raye went it alone as an impartial artist, working with label companies firm the Orchard. She wrote a lot of her long-overdue debut album by herself, in addition to co-producing all however two songs: it hit No 2 and scored her a Mercury prize nomination and an Ivor Novello win. That Polydor have been apparently unable to think about Raye’s appreciable potential past the realm of the sticky-floor nightclub banger ought to immediate extraordinarily laborious questions on major-label A&R practices and the opposite younger ladies inevitably being held again by their bet-hedging.
For now, Raye’s recognition by the industry-populated, 1,200-strong Brits voting academy seems like a determined try by the British music enterprise to assert her for its personal and mark her success with its imprimatur: voting for the fairytale final result whereas quietly ignoring the cage she was stored in. (In the meantime you do type of really feel for the very worthy acts who missed their probability within the highlight, a few of whom, regarded a bit miffed because the cameras lower away to them.) Whereas nobody ought to neglect precisely how she aced her second act, it’s additionally value noting that Raye isn’t a family title, and that if the more and more irrelevant Brit awards is nice for something, it’s that her extraordinary, medley-style efficiency and general prominence this night can have uncovered her to a complete new viewers – televised platforms for the very best of British music not precisely being in huge provide in 2024. That viewers feels limitless, too: Raye performs with a Winehouse-loving teen viewers who by no means really obtained to reside by means of Winehouse’s too-brief pop heyday, in addition to with older listeners impressed by the normal expertise and soul acumen she showcased in a particular live performance on the Royal Albert Corridor final yr. The place the Brits can merely clog the mantlepiece for superstars, it might nicely apply rocket gasoline to Raye’s streaming figures within the coming week.
After the controversy over the all-male finest artist class final yr – the Brits having executed away with gendered classes in 2022 – Raye’s success additionally represents a course-corrective for the Brits, the place 70% of this yr’s winners, together with these introduced previous to the ceremony, have been ladies. (On the Grammys, too, the Huge 4 and style classes have been dominated by ladies.) Essentially the most hanging of the male victors was rapper Casisdead in finest hip-hop/grime/rap – the style classes all being voted for by followers – after 20 years within the recreation, whereas Carry Me the Horizon gained the all-male alt/rock discipline. There have been nonetheless WTF moments: in finest dance act, Calvin Harris beat Fred Once more, who – Miracle apart – was way more culturally penetrating within the final yr; Jungle successful finest group over Younger Fathers is a triumph of sports activities montage music over genuinely provocative artwork that underscores the absurdities in paranoid Britain’s identification disaster whereas embodying a progressive multicultural various. However that’s the ever-contradictory Brits for you: a love-in for an {industry} that nearly silenced its biggest prize.
