Two years after the release of her critically-acclaimed debut studio album SAWAYAMA, Japanese-British pop rebel Rina Sawayama returns with her sophomore album Hold the Girl. Released on September 16, 2022, this album sees Sawayama exploring the depths of her creativity while constructing a cohesive narrative based on the idea of healing. Hold the Girl meshes together bits and pieces of various genres such as country, stadium rock, garage, pop, indie rock, along with various other sounds. It is definitely an incredible depiction of Sawayama’s artistic genius.
The album’s central idea of healing is broken up into three different parts: healing her inner child, healing from her past, and healing for others. Through these songs, Sawayama catalogs her own emotional growth over the past few years (1). The songs touch on themes of mending her relationship with her mother, reconciling with who she has grown up to become, remembering and holding onto who she was when she was a child, moving on from the hardships of her past, and helping others heal from their trauma, especially for the queer community. As a pandemic project, Hold the Girl was a way for Sawayama to work through the intense anxiety that she experienced during the quarantine (1). It is a personal diary of sorts as she reflects on her past trauma, how she has grown from it, and how she is still growing past it. The album is a pure creative force of nature that takes inspiration from another pandemic project: Taylor Swift’s Folklore. In an interview with Rolling Stone UK, Sawayama said that Swift was “writing about fake stories and she just wrote a whole album. If she can do it, I need to do it” (1). This helped open up the floodgates for her artistry to run wild as she constructed strong narratives within each song as well as across the whole album.
Though I loved the fresh sound and uplifting messages of SAWAYAMA, I have a soft spot for incredibly emotional albums that have a strong narrative, and this album definitely hits the mark. After hearing the first single– ‘This Hell’– when it was released on May 18, 2022, I was hooked and extremely excited to explore the rest of the album’s sound. As the other singles dropped one-by-one, I enjoyed the various, individual stories that they told, but it wasn’t until I listened to full of the album in order that I truly grasped the totality of Sawayama’s composition. The songs all tell their own stories, but they also seem to interact with each other and combine to form the transformative idea of healing.
I also love how Sawayama takes risks to subvert commonly-held expectations. In her first lead single ‘This Hell’, she takes a spin on the country sound to create a club hit that focuses on subverting the common idea– among certain people– that members of the LGBTQ+ community will end up in hell. Instead, she constructs a song based on the idea of love, community, and freedom. Though it speaks on a very serious topic, the song is pure escapist fun. Sawayama seems to tell us that it is okay to let go of all the pain and just be present in your identity; she gives a sense of levity to the acidic belief and flippantly tells her audience “God hates us?/ Alright then” (2). It’s certainly a gratifying song that incites healing by tackling a, unfortunately, widely-held belief that holds a lot of trauma for many, including Sawayama herself. She speaks on this with Rolling Stone UK and declares, “I just want to have fun” (1).
My favorite lyrics of the song have to be in the chorus when she sings “This Hell is better with you/ We’re burning up together/ Baby, that makes two” (2). She reminds her LGBTQ+ fans that they will always have this community of people to fall back on and give them strength when they need it. Even if so many others sling hateful rhetoric at them, this community will create their own happiness.
Every time I listen to the album, I seem to find new parts of different songs to love. Those are my favorite kinds of albums– the ones that feel like Russian nesting dolls that you can explore the intricacies of and unearth all the different layers with each new listen. Some of my favorites on the album, though, are definitely ‘Minor Feelings’, ‘Imagining’, ‘Frankenstein’, and ‘Send My Love To John’. I actually cried to ‘Send My Love To John’ while I was walking to class one day– it was embarrassing.
After the first few initial listens, I can definitely tell that this will be a cathartic album for many people that may have been struggling with the same emotions Sawayama had been toiling over the past few years. I know that I personally found some solace in her words and some energy in her dynamic composition. It’s truly a unique album that hit all the right notes and is a fitting follow-up to her electric debut album. She has outdone herself once again.
Kevin, yet again you provide me with a new artist. Unlike Beyonce and SZA, I have never heard of Rina Sawayama. I love how connected you feel to her music and her message; your passion exudes through the blog. If she’s anything like Tay Tay, I know I’ll love her stuff. Also, I loved the pun. I’m sure it did hit the right notes.
Kevin, your writing truly never fails to amaze me. I absolutely love your connections between the lyrics and the meanings of the songs. I also admire how you gave insight as to what you love in albums– albums that are like russian nesting dolls– and really encompassedd how much this album and this artist means to you.
This was great insight for someone I’m not familiar with. I feel like I almost know everything about her musical style and significance just from reading this post. I love how your blogs are so interesting to read even though it’s usually artists whose music I am not overly familiar with.