Rina Sawayama

One Liner:  Super catchy pop that gave me Gaga vibes

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, this is bedroom pop and pop rock

Home: L.A.

Poster Position: 5 (27)
Weekend One Only.
Saturday.

Thoughts: She's on the same tiny label that originally signed The 1975, I wonder if that is a theme on some of these bands.  Another fun factoid is that she made her acting debut in John Wick: Chapter 4.

Born in Niigata, Japan, her family moved to London when she was five.  Originally, she did not speak English and eventually connected with folks through pop music.  At sixteen, she started posting pop covers on MySpace and formed a hip hop group called Lazy Lion.  She names her inspirations as Madonna, Christina, Gaga, Katy, Avril, Beyonce, Britney, and more.  To my ear, which is not really that steeped in pop music stuff, this makes me think of Lady Gaga first.  Kind of belting, a little weird, and purely poppy.  I have definitely never heard a single one of these tunes before.

The top song on her Spotify is actually a Charlie XCX song that she just appears on.  Her personal top streamer makes me think of some old school Britney song of strumming guitars (or is that making me think of a Justin Timberlake song?) and a beat, except that there are random power chords that pop up every once in a while like Dave Hetfield keeps popping his head into the studio and shredding as a joke to ruin the tune.  "XS" has 58.6 million streams.

Legit catchy pop tune.  If I was in to that sort of thing, this would be a banger.  That tune is from her 2020 album SAMAYAMA, which appears to be her big album, being that it has more tunes in her top ten than any other.  Her debut album - 2017's RINA - doesn't have any huge songs on it.  Her only other album is 2022's Hold the Girl, and its big track is "This Hell," with 29.4 million streams.

There's that Lady Gaga vibe with the more belt-y vocals.  There was a moment there just now where this was making me think of country pop.  And another super catchy track - if that doesn't make you want to boogie a little bit then something is wrong on your end.  Ha!  She was on the Metallica Black Album tribute thing a few years ago.  That is funny.