Lately, the charts have been crowded with older hits, which makes Ravyn Lenae’s “Love Me Not” all the more noteworthy. “Love Me Not” is already two years old and remains popular, but it’s worth noting that its success doesn’t come from a legacy artist or a mainstream star, but from a singer who until recently was mainly known within R&B and alternative circles. The biggest hit from her debut has racked up about 50 million streams. “Love Me Not” has surpassed a billion streams.
Ravyn Lenae has decided to ride the wave by releasing the album a year after the viral moment, and after performing at festivals such as Mad Cool. “Blue Island,” of course, features guitars and tracks that feel festival-ready, like the rousing “In & Out,” which should become a new hit for Lenae.
But the album also contains other facets. Named after the Chicago neighborhood where Ravyn Lenae was born and which she visited only intermittently with her family, the third album from Lenae aims to convey the sense of an artist still in progress. The surprising success of “Love Me Not” fuels guitar-forward songs like the catchy single “Handle,” but there is an obvious intent to return to roots in R&B with tracks such as “Babygirl,” featuring Doechii, though in this case delivering a more intimate vibe.
Ravyn has explained that the triumph of “Love Me Not” forced her to confront prejudices from purists as well as casual listeners who assumed she was white because of the song’s sound. On “Blue Island” she explores a blend of guitars and elevated R&B and soul harmonies, leveraging her well-known melodic sensibility, and tracks like the lush “Familiar Dreams” resist being boxed in, while “Potential” pushes that formula toward an electronic finish with a Björk-esque edge.
The songs once again revolve around the sorrows of love, with a Ravyn on “Saturday Night” trying to pick up the pieces after a breakup, or in “Never Let Me Go” swooning, unable to conceal her emotions. Positioned between 80s black pop and Janet Jackson’s luminous R&B of the “Damita Jo” era, Lenae continues to shine in this style, although cuts like “Barriers” or “Wish You Well” reiterate the same ideas with less convincing results, and the eighties-flavored “Find It One Day” ends up sounding like a cliché. The suggestive tone of “HYPNOS” has nearly vanished altogether.
Not a single track on “Blue Island” is worse than the decision to drop a family WhatsApp audio into the otherwise exquisite “Never Let Me Go,” which ruins the vibe completely. Bringing together a clutch of solid singles and other fan favorites of alternative R&B, such as “Sew Me Back Together” or the campfire-tinged “Reputation,” with Dominic Fike, “Blue Island” is a solid return that, nonetheless, runs the risk of homogenizing within the 80s revival and could have benefited from a few fewer tracks.
