‘Hold The Girl’ falls short of expectations
Rina Sawayama has always been flashy. Her sophomore album, “Hold The Girl” — released Sept. 16 — demonstrates a step back from the extravagant motifs of power, aesthetics and luxury on her first studio album, “SAWAYAMA.” Instead, Sawayama attempts to reflect and reconcile with her younger self, while still retaining the fun and intense atmosphere of her debut album.
With “Hold The Girl,” Sawayama makes a grand effort to balance the introspective and glamorous aspects of the album, but it unfortunately falls short. While the tracks about partying and saying “F*** off” to the haters are great, the slower, softer, more reflective tracks rely on cliches to seem relatable.
“Hold The Girl”’s opening track, “Minor Feelings” sets up the hellish atmosphere of the album. From the eye-catching tagline, “Rina is going to hell,” to the red background of the album art to the song itself, the entire album is shrouded in an air of doom and intensity. “Minor Feelings” ends on the sound of rain and church bells, repeated throughout multiple tracks on the album, signaling that this is going to be a different type of Rina Sawayama album.
The titular track, “Hold The Girl,” continues in this new direction, as she sings, “Sometimes I get down with guilt / For the promises I’ve broken to my younger self.” The song has more of a dance sound than the opening track, and once again, Sawayama demonstrates her musical prowess as she mixes dance with orchestral support. Sawayama is big on reflection in this album, as she struggles to reconcile the reality of her present self with the hopes and dreams of her younger self.
However, as seen on tracks further on in the album, Sawayama’s reflection ends up repetitive and derivative. The beauty of her debut album came from her unflinching criticism of and playfulness with ideas of wealth, beauty and societal expectations.
On “Hold The Girl”, the unfortunate three-track run of “Hurricanes,” “Send My Love To John” and “Phantom” leave a lot to be desired, relying on cliches and running the concept of past self versus present self into the ground. On “Hurricanes,” Sawayama sings, “Until I find your door, until the wind blows north / I’m running, I’m running, running into hurricanes.”
This tired imagery of storms feels unimaginative, especially when you consider that Sawayama’s ability to push the boundaries of music is what allowed her to carve out a unique niche in the industry.
Moreover, her insistence on focusing on the domestic and personal leads tracks like “Phantom” and “Catch Me In The Air” to feel out of place on an album that’s almost half intense dance tracks. There’s simply no way to compare the mellow and sweet sound of “Catch Me In The Air” to the intense, punishing bass line of “Frankenstein.”
On the former, she contemplates her relationship with her single mother by singing, “So catch me in the air, the air, the air, the air, the air, the air / (Mama, look at me now,)” creating a nice domestic scene in the mind of the listener.
But on the latter, the classic Sawayama sound comes out to create one of the strongest tracks on the album as she confronts beauty expectations, wishing she could push off the responsibility to someone else: “Oh, my God, this is so unbearable / Make it stop, this is more than medical / All I want is to feel beautiful inside and out / You’re the one who can save me from myself.”
Similarly, take the first single released off “Hold The Girl,” “This Hell”. It feels like a proper Rina Sawayama track, full of biting witticisms and name drops of famous women scorned. She sings, “Saw a poster on the corner opposite the motel / Turns out I’m going to Hell if I keep on being myself.”
Sawayama’s identity as a pansexual woman influences so much of her music, and it is obvious on “This Hell” as she celebrates the happiness that comes with being her authentic self. It’s fun, danceable and mixes glam-rock guitar riffs with a country twang and her pop focus.
She tells us, “Fuck what they did to Britney, to Lady Di and Whitney / Don’t know why we’re here, but might as well get down and dirty,” and repeats the clever and tongue-in-cheek bridge of “Got my invitation to eternal damnation / Get in line, pass the wine, bitch / We’re going straight to Hell.” “This Hell” personifies everything great about the album — intense atmosphere, upbeat sound and feels like it would go really hard on Dance Dance Revolution.
Overall, “Hold The Girl” does everything half-right. The tracks that are more dance-focused feel better produced and more well-written, while her attempts at relatability and introspection rely on cliches to create an emotional impact that falls short. It lacks the “in your face” punch of her first album, and she beats the few themes of the album into the ground over the course of the 13 tracks.
It will be interesting to see how her sound develops in the future as she deviates from the expected Rina Sawayama sound — it didn’t work out on this album, but there’s always the next.