Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The cover of Rose Gray’s Louder, Please shows the Londoner in a scene resembling a Martin Parr photo of the seaside, except with beautiful people and better weather. Gray is listening to a yellow cassette Walkman, belting out a big note with eyes scrunched shut and hands held to head. The music has taken her there.Does her debut album do the same? Contrary to the cover, there’s hardly any big singing. But the songs thrum with vitality and personality. They have a colourful dance-pop energy that taps into the 1990s and 2000s without becoming trapped in the past. The exuberance of being young runs through the album, sung with a hint of nostalgia. “What a time to be alive,” the singer marvels in “Just Two”.Gray has been bubbling under for the last few years, touted in ones-to-watch lists and attracting attention as half of a glamorous couple (her long-term boyfriend is the actor Harris Dickinson). The title of her 2021 mixtape Dancing, Drinking, Talking, Thinking neatly encapsulates the mix of pleasure and intelligence in her music. Its vocals were influenced by one of Gray’s favourite singers, Amy Winehouse. On that occasion she really did sing out, although not to notable effect. The songs were held back by plodding 1990s breakbeats and house piano chords.Louder, Please is much nimbler. “Damn” plunges into the fray with the clattering drums of rave music. “Always surrender so willingly,” Gray croons. Her vocals switch between murmured sing-speech and a pitched-up chipmunk tone. The results are at once irresistible and unpredictable.“Free” sums up the album’s philosophy with arms-aloft euphoria about the best things being free, like the freckle on a nose or walking in the ocean. How you get to the ocean gratis goes unexplained, but the point is taken. It’s reinforced by “Angel of Satisfaction”, a storming electropop number with shades of Robyn, in which Gray sings about wants and needs. “If you want too much,” she choruses, “then it’s misery.”Catchy rather than grabby, Louder, Please wants our attention, but not to an excessive degree. It’s too quirky and lively to be needy. There’s a wobble midway through with the pro forma chart-pop of “Tectonic” and sleekly dull “Party People”. But the other songs tell their stories well. They recount erotic fugues, nights out clubbing, being in love: the heightened states of mind that music can take us to.★★★★☆‘Louder, Please’ is released by Play It Again Sam
