The curse of the sophomore slump is often one of the biggest hurdles to navigate for new artists, particularly after a strong first showing. For London singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama, the hurdle is exceptional. Her 2019 debut SAWAYAMA is near pop perfection, introducing the world to Rina Sawayama by taking bold and big swings that, startlingly, always landed. Together with producer and collaborator Clarence Clarity, Sawayama crafted a sound that rooted itself in Y2k nostalgia but refused to be bound by genre. In the span of a single song, she could pivot from Evanescence nu-metal theatrics to saccharine bubble-gum pop, clashing and contrasting genres in a way that made SAWAYAMA thrillingly teeter on the edge between bonkers and brilliant. Of course, this set up an obvious dilemma for whatever she might do next. Pull the same moves, and risk sounding more like a one-trick pony than an innovator, or change the strategy and risk losing at your own game. Her sophomore album, Hold The Girl, exists somewhere in-between these concerns. Written over lockdown as a catharsis of sorts for Sawayama, Hold The Girl sees significant growth in aspects of her artistry, though often falters in holding the full weight of its ideas.
While the thematic through line of SAWAYAMA seemed to emerge naturally, on Hold The Girl it feels as if Sawayama is working backwards; writing from a specific point of view from the get-go. This point of view is that of her inner child, and she uses Hold The Girl as a vehicle to pursue healing from the traumas of a turbulent childhood. Named after a term she learnt while in therapy, the notion of ‘holding the girl’ has been described by Sawayama as the act of ‘re-parenting’ herself following years of trauma caused by homophobia and the struggles of assimilation felt by her immigrant parents. Sawayama’s greatest skill as a lyricist has always been her unique ability to turn the political into pop, and on Hold The Girl her senses are sharper than ever. Catch Me In The Air is an ode to an immigrant mother’s sacrifices dressed as a power ballad by The Corrs, and is touching in its earnestness. The sweet sentiment of Sawayama’s “mama, look at me now” refrain is catharsis of the highest order. On Frankenstein, a Fall Out Boy meets the Sugababes anthem, she fixates on the otherness of the queer experience. She turns to abjection, using Frankenstein’s monster as a metaphor for piecing together a self broken by hate, both internal and external. The album is essentially therapy in motion, and sometimes Sawayama manages to strike the white-hot emotional core of her subject matter with poignant precision. On Phantom, the monster metaphors continue as she sings directly to the girl at the centre of the album. “I don’t want to do this without you,” she pleads, pulling her inner child away from oblivion while asking, “how do you hold a ghost?”
Download and stream Hold The Girl here
But while Hold The Girl flourishes from Sawayama’s growth as a writer, it fares less successfully in establishing a distinct sonic direction. Sawayama and Clarity once again mine left-field kitsch pop references, from early 90’s soft-rock and honky country-pop to Disney Channel original pop-punk, mixing these with lashings of garage and UK bass. Paired with Sawyama’s often pontifical lyrics, it’s closest cousin is likely Lady Gaga’s rock popera Born This Way, but with less of that album’s all-out bombast. There’s a dissonance between the handful of songs that find themselves in the arena and those that play out in the club. The blurry eyed Forgiveness, for instance, exists between Radiohead and Gwen Stefani with its post-Britpop swagger, but sits above the post-punk eurodance of Holy (Til You Let Me Go) on the tracklist. It reveals how Hold The Girl is essentially an album hidden inside of itself, folded into too many ideas that aren’t cohesive with each other. Though when the pastiche works, it really works. The album’s Eurovision ready title track is one of the its strongest for this reason, segueing from its clerical Like A Prayer intro into an 8-bit two-step breakdown before pivoting to country infused pop on its verses. The turns here may not be as sharp as STFU, instead Sawayama’s stylistic references slide in and out of each other seamlessly, but it’s the perfect foil to balance the song’s camp preachiness. Imagining also handles its pastiche well, returning Sawayama to the UKG of Beg For You but filtered through Grime’s Kill V. Maim. On the other hand, sometimes Sawayama’s approach is uncharacteristically subtle. Your Age might blend Timbaland-produced Justin Timberlake with Nine Inch Nails while slyly interpolating Queen, but somehow comes off insipid. It’s missing the element of attack that we heard across SAWAYAMA on its most daring tracks, making the mashup a tough sell.
It’s a bit of a tragedy that Rina Sawayama exists in this time and place. For too long, she’s been poised to inherit the pop throne from her idols in the echelon of Gaga and Madonna, and she has everything it takes to do so. But this is the post-popstar zeitgeist and the age of the viral sensation. It’s likely why she’s straddled the mainstream and the underground more so than any of her peers, looking to make the leap from online to on the charts. It just happens to be at a time where the boundaries between the mainstream and the internet are at their most crepuscular. With Hold The Girl, Sawayama ultimately delivers a collection of mostly outstanding pop songs that don’t really belong together, which makes the album require a few listens before things start to click (or don’t). It’s clear that she’s attempting to find the balance between her inherent theatricality and a more accessible pop identity, and the dichotomy between these two sides is something she has yet to reconcile. Until she sticks the landing, we’ll be here holding our girl.
Watch Rina Sawayama perform the title track from Hold The Girl below.
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