Rina Sawayama - SAWAYAMA (Review)

One small step for Rina, one giant leap for pop music...

Over the last few years, Rina has been building herself up as an intriguing outsider within R&B, predominantly due to her rejection of the static sound palette utilised by the large majority of up-and-comers within the genre looking to make a name for themselves. Make no mistake, what Rina is doing here is simultaneously stepping outside the confines of the murky R&B that's dominated for half a decade and stepping into about eight different rooms all with their own sounds and styles that she pulls from to emphasise the incredibly strong and diverse personality that she is.

What's perhaps most impressive about SAWAYAMA is the ease at which Rina is able to blend all these opposing styles into a cohesive, consistent and thoroughly engaging listen. Moving from the harsh fury of the metal guitars on "STFU!" to the fluid bass-driven sensuality of "Comme Des Garçons" shouldn't be as seamless as it is...but it is! There's no shortage of switch-ups either, but Rina's eccentric and captivating personality is what drives the album forward as the bold forefront of the music. It's how pop music should be: catchy, immediate, unignorable and, most importantly, identifiable. Where so much pop music goes wrong (in every decade) is its memorability, too frequently opting for the guarantee of fame via the method of trend-chasing over personality. Rina is one of those artists with complete disregard for what's trendy or safe, instead choosing to take every potential path at once in an unapologetic and uncommonly open approach to music, to pop music. As distant as this record is from any other pop album that has come out this year*, the structure of songs and the performances she gives are all fundamentally typical of classic modern pop music; it's that contrast between structure and sound that attracts me to this album so much, the simplicity of being this varied and experimental in a familiar and accessible setting offering a hugely appealing view into what I hope is the future of pop music.

I do realise that Poppy's album I Disagree has a very similar cross blend of genres as this one but, even despite the similarly pop/metal/synth direction, there isn't the same central pop feel nor commanding presence and cohesion that SAWAYAMA has. Poppy's album leans on pop as another genre to pull from, whilst Rina's fundamentally is pop music, only it's willing to expand into other a whole pool of other genres. Not to mention, where Poppy's album suffered from being strangely forgettable and even boring at times, Rina's has been at the forefront of my mind since its release. It's a near-perfect execution of its concept, and a phenomenal introduction for Rina as an artist. This is among the best debuts, nay, releases of 2020 thus far.

9/10

Best Tracks: XS; STFU!; Comme Des Garçons; Paradisin'; Bad Friend; Who's Gonna Save U Now?; Tokyo Love Hotel; Chosen Family; Snakeskin
Worst Tracks: F*** This World

Watch the video for "XS"

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"SAWAYAMA"
Rina Sawayama

17th April 2020

Dirty Hit

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