Last modified on Wed 16 Dec 2020 09.57 EST
Rina Sawayamaâs debut album should be a mess â the kind of idea that looks interesting on paper, but sounds horrendous coming out of your speakers. Its musical influences are the product of that preteen period when you love music indiscriminately, or at least without worrying what it says about you, what your friends like, whatâs deemed cool or how certain genres define themselves against each other.
Sawayama was born in 1990, which means she hit that period at the turn of the millennium. Her debut album is the sound of someone who absorbed early 2000s pop culture letting her memories gush out â a world where Britney Spears happily coexists with nu-metal; where a love of Destinyâs Child and Timbalandâs futuristic take on hip-hop and R&B doesnât preclude devotion to the mock-operatic goth rock of Evanescence; when video game soundtracks become as indelible as whateverâs on the radio. The soundtrack of
STFU! – the lead single – is similarly audacious. Blending metal and 2000s pop, Rina creates a fiery song, unleashing her pent-up anger towards the microaggressions she faces as a Japanese-British woman. The robust electric guitar instrumental can only be done justice when blasted at full volume.
Both
Akasaka Sad explore intergenerational depression: “the pain in my veins is hereditary”.
Akasaka Sad sees Rina pay homage to her Japanese heritage, singing in Japanese and English. Instrumentally, this song is substandard, with an over-repetitive trip-hop chorus. The album’s closing song,
Snakeskin, also falls into this same, slightly jarring trap. However, lyrically, it’s a strong ending, as Rina uses the metaphor of a snakeskin to reveal how she’s shedding the trauma identified on earlier tracks.