FEATURE:
The Best Albums of 2025
Rose Gray – Louder, Please
__________
IN this series…
PHOTO CREDIT: Sammy King for Cosmopolitan UK
I am spotlighting my favourite albums of the year and those seen as the best by critics. So far, I have focused on albums from pretty major artists. Albums that got a lot of attention. Whilst Rose Gray’s debut, Louder, Please, won a lot of praise, I don’t think that it got as much focus as it should have. It deserved award nominations and more elevation. However, Rose Gray is a Muswell Hill-born artist who began releasing music in 2019, putting out numerous singles and a mixtape, Dancing, Drinking, Talking, Thinking (2021), before being signed to PIAS Recordings. A proud queen of North London (though she may feel she is more East London), Little, Louder was released in January. On 24th October, Gray released a Deluxe Edition called A Little Louder, Please. A new single, April, was released, in addition to collaborations with the edition will feature collaborations with Melanie C, Jade, Shygirl, and Casey MQ. One of the songs from Louder, Please, is called Hackney Wick. It is one of the best songs I have heard in years and is one of many terrific cuts from Louder, Please. I am going to end with two reviews for the album. I want to start out with a few promotional interviews for one of the best debuts of this year. Rose Gray is a tremendous artist with a loyal and very impassioned following. Gray recently completed some gigs in Mexico. She plays in Australia on 21st February at Bondi Beach, which is likely to be one of her biggest and most picturesque gigs ever. However, she plays The O2 in London on 7th December. I have been a fan for a little while, and this year has been a truly massive one for Gray. I think next year is going to be pretty big too, in terms of festival bookings and new music. It is amazing she has that Australian gig. The gig at the O2 is going to be packed and might be her most important to date!
Let’s get to some interviews with the sensational and super-talented Rose Gray. I forgot to say that you can follow Gray on Instagram. I will end with a couple of more recent interviews. A chance to see what Rose Gray was talking about at the start of the year. Where she is now in terms of looking back and what the future holds. An artist who injects so much character and originality into her music, it is no wonder that she has amassed this loving following. PAPER spoke with Gray in January, the day before her debut album release. This is an artist who grew up on Pop and has it in her blood. Rather than replicate idols and queens who went before, she adds her own voice and stamp:
“These nightlife vignettes, which climax on “Hackney Wick,” are born from Gray’s own relationship to London’s underground rave culture, which deepened after a “bit of a false start with music very young.” She tells us: “I came out of the other side feeling like I’ve been dragged through crap. And I was not even in my 20s yet, so I worked loads of jobs and I was living for the weekends.” She laughs, and repeats herself for emphasis. “I started to live for the weekends, really."
It’s the sort of frank opinion of herself here that gives the album a singular tone, frenetic and opinionated and deeply inquisitive and diaristic about the club, itself pulled out of intangibility into something real, human even. Characterful. Her early “false start” in the music industry gave her a life she’d not have been afforded had it all clicked into place as a teen. As she sees it, that life was precious and necessary. “I think some artists are just born ready, and they have life experience. I don’t know where they get it from, but they have it. And I wasn’t really like that. I needed to grow up, I needed to have things to write about.”
For more on Louder, Please, or Gray’s opinions on everything from Robyn's perfect pop career to Amy Winehouse and Dido’s feud to ‘90s Prada campaigns and Charli xcx's impact on British electronic music, read our full interview below.
If you could pick one song off the album that you feel is either representative of you as an artist or of the project, what would it be?
I think “Party People." It’s a sad club anthem that is my ode to the party people I have met since I started clubbing. I have been fascinated with those characters that rule the night, and they do it with such grace and balance. I am a party person, but I have friends and people that I know that are just born to be in the club and socialize, and I’m quite fascinated by them as characters. That’s what the song is about, really, my love for party people.
You said it’s a sad song, too. Where does the element of sadness come into play with you?
Oh, deep! I sometimes find that people that love to party, we are maybe escaping something in our lives, that we maybe don’t feel seen or safe not in the club, or around our chosen family. I’ve partied a bit in New York, and I love the vibe, but I find that in London, I’m with my group, and we’re all dressed up, going partying. When you get into the club, you’re like, "Oh, I’m here now, thank goodness." I’m getting weird looks on the train from some guy who has never seen anything like my group of friends. And then you get to the club, and you’re like, "These are my people, I’m fine now."
In the industry, so much of making pop music is younger, younger, younger. You only have so many years to be a pop star. It’s an idea that’s changed a lot, but I still don’t hear many people say actually, it was good that I lived for the weekend for a while, and lived some things to write about.
I almost wish I’d not worried as much. I think I’ve always focused on music. I could have actually let it go even more, and just had a bit more fun. I have had to be very persistent, though, to get to a place where I can bring out an album. It’s been so many no's. In fact, it’s kind of a joke with my team, they’re like: “I don’t think many other artists would have swam through it all." But I’m glad it’s here now.
You’ve said you’ve been influenced by the likes of Kylie, Robyn, some of my favorites, even Ray of Light era Madonna. There’s a prevailing influence of people like Britney in pop right now, or Lady Gaga. I don’t hear many people talk about being inspired by Kylie, or Robyn. What drew you to their specific styles of pop music?
I have no idea why more people aren’t drawing from there. Blows my mind. But Robyn, I think she just writes perfect pop songs. There’s so much character in them as well. You know what? They’re not perfect pop songs. That’s why they’re so characterful. They’re not slick. Someone said to me they’re wonky pop. I think Chappell is a good example of what I would say comes under wonky pop. It’s not perfect, but it is just genius.
Last question: I think there is a moment right now where people are hungry for British pop and electronic music, JADE, Charli, etc. Why do you think that’s breaking through right now?
British pop has become very clubby, and very weird and fun. I think we’re quite good at dance music, I will say that. I’ve sort of felt it since COVID times, with like, drum and bass coming back, and even the wave of PinkPantheress, which feels ages ago now. But I do remember feeling that in the UK, it was working overseas, making dance music. I don’t know, there’s something in the air, something going on. I think we’ve got to thank Charli for opening it up. Even just with me, I’d play songs, maybe two years ago, and they’re like, oh, we don’t know if it’s pop or it’s electronic. And now it’s like, well look how Brat did. Definitely feels very open now, that maybe the industry behind the scenes is getting on top of it, understanding the power of electronic pop”.
Before moving things to recently, I actually want to go back to the end of last year. British Vogue asked whether Rose Gray is the next big British Pop artist. That is a big question! There are so many amazing peers that could take that title, though there is something about Gray that suggests she is going to be an icon soon. Someone who is going to be a massive name very soon. She is definitely going to inspire so many other artists:
“Yet while Gray today is more about self-preservation than the wild nights of years past, Louder, Please is also, at points, a bracingly candid record, offering a diaristic account of the past few years of her life. “Lots of parties, lots of tears, a bit of heartbreak, a bit of heart-fixing,” she says. “I feel like there’s a few tracks on the record that sound a bit like falling back in love.” (Gray is in a long-term relationship with actor Harris Dickinson, making them something of a British bright-young-thing power couple.) On the standout track “Hackney Wick”—think Burial meets Lily Allen—she offers a blow-by-blow account of a night out in east London through a kind of hushed spoken word. “Breaking into Victoria Park, having a snog under the stars, going to another party where my mate was DJing,” she says. “I can't play that to anyone who knows me because I hate hearing myself speak, though.” Elsewhere, the record is peppered with the sort of snippets and whispers you’d hear in club bathrooms. “I think as a songwriter, I’m a bit of a sponge,” she adds. “Which is quite exhausting, really.”
The moment Gray realized the puzzle pieces of her first album were coming together was when she began working with Justin Tranter, the songwriter behind some of Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber’s biggest hits. After the two jumped on a Zoom in the early months of lockdown and found themselves waxing lyrical about Madonna, Tranter led Gray through something of a masterclass in songwriting, encouraging her to home in on her tangle of ideas and feelings. “I’ve never experienced writing like what I’ve experienced with Justin,” she says. “It’s quite magic.” Elsewhere, her collaborators on the record include the white-hot electronic producer Sega Bodega, electroclash queen Uffie, and house DJ Alex Metric—but even with all these cooks in the kitchen, the outcome feels distinctly Gray. “I feel like I’m pretty headstrong in sessions,” she notes. “I know what I do and don’t like.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Yana Van Nuffel
Just as unequivocal is the visual world Gray has constructed around the album: a wonderland of seedy glamour and fun in the sun that harks back to the glory days of ’90s Ibiza, and the work of photographers like Martin Parr and Elaine Constantine, who captured the electric energy of those underground nightlife scenes with striking, saturated color. “When I spoke to the photographer, I wanted it to be like a ’90s Prada campaign, but starring Dido,” Gray says, with a cheeky grin. (She also describes the look as Kylie Minogue’s iconic “Slow” music video mixed with Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast—you can see the vision.) On the album cover, Gray stands on a beach in Barcelona while lovers canoodle in the sand and seagulls squawk above her head; with a Walkman attached to her bikini bottoms and headphones in her ears, she lets out a scream. “It’s a little bit tacky, but also quite glamorous,” Gray adds. “I think British dance music has always had that element, which I love, and now people like Charli XCX and Shygirl are making it cool again.”
Like Charli and Shygirl (the latter of whom Gray has collaborated with and supported onstage), Gray has also been hitting the club to spread the gospel of her upcoming music. Last month, she kicked off a series of DJ nights titled Gray Selects which she hopes can both invite new listeners into her world and spotlight the work of up-and-coming musicians she admires. “I just want to start getting us all together and playing out each other’s music,” she says. It’s a warm, communal spirit that courses through the record, too, which sounds like the sort of thing you’d listen to on your friend’s portable speaker while getting ready for a night out, sipping a lukewarm vodka Red Bull while the smell of straightener-fried hair and Impulse body spray hangs in the air.
“I hope I’ve made the kind of record that me and my best mates would absolutely play until we’re all sick of it,” she says. “Getting ready, going out, getting dolled up for a festival. But I also hope it’s something that people can listen to when they’re traveling to work. I don’t think it’s just a party or a club record. Everyone I’ve played the record to has a different favorite song, which I think is a good thing.” It’s true: while the album does feel like a statement of intent, it’s in the more ambiguous moments—where the sweary meets the seductive, or where heartbreak meets the euphoric highs of the dancefloor—that Gray truly shines. With Louder, Please, she’s ready for the big leagues”.
Let’s bring things forward. Well, to October. Rose Gray was interviewed for Ticketmaster Discover. Talking about her new single, April, it was chance to look back at the success of Louder, Please and what she has achieved since then. This album is seriously amazing and everyone needs to hear it. A modern Pop gem from an artist who is going to be in the industry for decades:
“You’ve just released ‘April’ – is that story about a real person?
It’s definitely about a real person, but it’s also a metaphor for that character that I seem to always be drawn to when I’m out, those people that are so free, and in their bodies. I had this night, and I just was like, ‘This person is incredible. I aspire to be like her.’ It’s a metaphor for many characters that I’ve met on the dancefloor.
Does the world need more people like April in it?
I don’t think Aprils are a rare breed. I think there’s many.
Nine months down the line, do you resonate with the ethos of Louder, Please even more, considering how you’ve been firing on all cylinders?
It definitely resonates with me even more now, having sung those lyrics, or shouted them, like, in ‘Damn’. I kept accidentally writing songs with ‘louder’ in it, coming back to the word. Whenever I’m on the mic, I still say, ‘Could you put up a little louder, please?’
This is kind of deep, but since I was a kid, I’ve always pushed for more. Whether it’s making music, art or learning a dance, I will take it to the next level. But it’s also quite exhausting, constantly wanting more for myself. It’s brilliant for my career, because a lot of people would have probably stopped a few years ago, when things weren’t working.
You recently released a mini doc about ‘Hackney Wick’. Is there more of that story to tell, regarding how the place helped shape the Rose Gray we know today?
There’s definitely more I feel. I feel very healed by that song. So many people in America told me how much they loved that song, which is so funny, because I imagine most of them haven’t been to Hackney Wick. It represents that place, wherever it is in the world, that you were drawn to, where some of the big life memories happened.
While you’ve been all over the world, do you miss the place, or is it reassuring that you always have it to come back to?
Hackney Wick has changed. I still love it and choose to meet my friends there for a drink. I really appreciate London more, now that I travel. [There’s] nothing quite like home. London is in my bones, it’s who I am.
Some people might disagree, but I think we’ve got a good balance of work, play and cosiness [in London]. Now we’re moving into autumn, all of our activities are going to change. Stockholm has that, New York has that, but a lot of places in the southern hemisphere are hot all the time and don’t
Are you enjoying riding the wave of everything that’s happening at the moment?
It’s been pretty consistent. When I’m in a studio, I’m sat on my arse with coffee all day. I’m very comfortable and rested when I’m making music. I’m also quite a good sleeper now. I’m making sure that I’m taking a step out of it, remembering how much everything has changed, trying to appreciate it and take everything in. I’m one of those annoying people that’s in a really amazing moment, and then I’ll tell everyone that I think it’s an amazing moment”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Andrea Lamedica
I am ending with a couple of positive reviews for Louder, Please. There are plenty to choose from! One of my favourite albums of this year, songs from it are still in my head! Hackney Wick is a modern masterpiece. I have not seen Rose Gray live, but I will catch it next year is she plays in London. Someone I am keen to interview at some point. Before getting to reviews, there is a new interview from Numéro Netherlands. After the release of A Little Louder, Please, and some incredible gigs, Rose Gray had a lot to reflect on. A modern Pop artist who channels greats like Kylie Minogue and Robyn, she has this distinct lyrical voice and sense of urgency. Songs that are very much for here and now, though we will be listening to them years from now:
“This has been a huge year for you; you released your debut album Louder, Please, you played at Glastonbury, you’ve been on tour with Kesha…how does it feel receiving such a positive reaction from audiences and the industry?
It’s been such a year. I released Louder, Please two weeks into 2025 and the record feels like the start of something for me. Seeing the way it has connected with people has been unreal. I poured so much of myself into making it, so watching it take on a life of its own has been really special. Since the release I’ve played shows all over the world and met so many amazing people along the way. It feels like everything I’ve been working towards for years has finally aligned. I’m travelling constantly, having so much fun, and for the first time the world and everything I dreamt about feels completely within reach. The album has changed my life in such a real way, but I always knew this change was possible because the music deserved it. It’s also funny because the tables have really turned; this time last year I could barely book a show. I was mostly DJing.
Like a lot of women, you had a pretty unsavoury introduction to the music industry, including losing more than a hundred of your songs to a record label before the age of 19. How did you bounce back and find your feet after such a harsh beginning?
Well, I think a little sprinkle of delusion helped! By delusion, I mean I never fully accepted that it wasn’t going to happen for me, even when so many doors were slammed in my face. I’ve taken some serious knocks along the way, but eight years in my skin has definitely thickened. I’m still sensitive, but I know my worth now and I’ve really learned my craft. I make so much music that losing those early songs doesn’t sting anymore because I’ve written hundreds of better ones since. I do think a lot about young women coming up in the industry. I want to protect new artists because I was exposed to too much too soon, and no one deserves to have their creativity taken advantage of like that.
You’ve just been on tour, what’s the process like when choosing your onstage outfits—is it different from choosing your clubbing outfits?
Archives. I'm lucky to have some friends who have archives, full of one-off pieces. I also have customised looks for shows which I swap in and out, but ultimately, it has to be moveable. I switch between shirts overlaid with bras, hot pants with detachable material, and tights—lots of different coloured tights. I love a little dramatic unveiling on stage. I feel like when I’m partying, I’m always thinking about how I can take off layers, and usually I will end up in a bra and bottoms. I’m the same for my live shows.
Looking ahead, what do the coming months hold for you?
I'm off on another tour, this time in Brazil and Mexico. This has been a big dream of mine: “Come to Brazil” really happened! After that I’ll be spending the rest of the year writing, I’m excited to get into the bubble of making another album”.
Two reviews to end with. Highlighting one of my favourite albums of the year. I will end with an NME review. However, I want to drop in The Guardian’s take. They commended the inventiveness of Rose Gray’s debut album. Despite this wonderful debut album, I feel Gray will get better and more ambitious. Someone you can see bringing in some big names to collaborate on her second studio album. I am a big fan already and cannot wait to see where she goes and everything she achieves:
“The London musician’s assured debut runs the gamut from aggressive jungle to uplifting house, toggling between hedonism and introspection
The last few years have proved tricky for female-fronted dance-pop, with interesting artists wasting away as guest vocalists on songs credited to male DJs with perfect teeth, or siloed into dead ends soundtracked by an efficient amalgam of drum’n’bass and sticky-floor EDM.
Thank goodness, then, for London’s Rose Gray, whose sweat-soaked debut album fizzes with inventiveness. She’s clearly a fan of dance music’s more experimental potential – opener Damn is an aggressively filtered jungle onslaught, while collaborators include producer Sega Bodega (Caroline Polachek, Shygirl) and electropop cult figure Uffie. But Gray also understands pop, with the campy Angel of Satisfaction stomping around a keening, early Gaga-esque chorus. The house-inflected Party People, meanwhile, would have nestled nicely on an 00s Ibiza Classics compilation mixed by Kaskade.
Hedonism is a key lyrical theme – Wet & Wild, all smile-inducing house pianos and breathy, Kylie-esque vocals, should come with its own bottle of room odouriser – but on tracks like Switch, about a tricky long-distance relationship, Gray looks inwards, searching for new ways to sustain a connection. Equally atmospheric is the spoken-word Hackney Wick, which charts a night out but focuses on relatable communion rather than focus-grouped exhortations to put your hands up.
There’s a comedown of sorts on the mid-tempo Everything Changes (But I Won’t), which saturates Gray’s voice in so many effects that its emotional impact is somewhat diluted. She’s better on tracks like Free, with its mantra-like chorus “The good shit in life is always free”, creating escapist dance-pop anthems that pierce the heart”.
NME states how Louder, Please offers escape and escapism from London’s underground Rave scene. They noted how Louder, Please “adds an enigmatic cutting edge to her upbeat dance-pop sound”. Anyone who has not heard this album needs to check it out. It is one of the year’s best:
“Mysterious, discomforting opener ‘Damn’ is worlds apart from the summery sounds we’ve become used to, as Gray’s voice distorts like a whining toddler: “Won’t you turn it up a little louder, please?” Meanwhile, that familiar sunny euphoria returns in the form of the escapist ‘Free’ and the Ibiza-friendly ‘Wet & Wild’, which balances its mouthful of a verse with a swirling chorus.
The loved-up throbbing bounce of ‘Just Two’ might be Gray’s most addictive track to date, although the following one-two of ‘Tectonic’ and ‘Party People’ – an ode to those strangers who become the main characters of your night out – risks the album falling into rinse and repeat territory for a moment. ‘Angel Of Satisfaction’ dispels that notion, carrying a pulse that would give every bassline on Dua Lipa’s ‘Future Nostalgia’ a run for its money.
‘Hackney Wick’ – perhaps east London’s answer to Confidence Man cult classic ‘C.O.O.L. Party’ – is refreshingly immediate and lucid (“I hear the bass, the music, and I succumb”), while ‘First’ represents Gray’s confident first foray into the liquid drum ‘n’ bass sound that has blown up the likes of Charlotte Plank and Venbee.
On ‘Louder, Please’, Gray’s music has finally caught up with her lifestyle. The crackly sounds of the underground finally have their unfiltered moments, while her long-standing pop sensibilities still retain their place through respectable chorus hooks and addictive melodies (her classical vocal training is also clear for all to see). Gray has too many strings to her bow to lay down one overarching, definitive statement. As such, ‘Louder, Please’ is more of a dare than an instruction: follow her down this rabbit hole, and brace yourself for where she ends up”.
Such a phenomenal artist who put out this debut album that linger long in the mind, I feel she already stands out from her Pop peers. I think that year is going to be her most successful year, though she can look back proudly on everything she has achieved this year. With a huge London gig coming on 7th December, she will hopefully have chance to chill and decompress before looking to what 2026 offers. A wonderful songwriter and someone we can be very proud of, Rose Gray is…
A shining British treasure.