Rina Sawayama.
Photo by Thurstan Redding.
Rina Sawayama has officially announced her sophomore album. Hold The Girl comes out September 2 on Dirty Hit. Today's announcement is accompanied by the release of lead single "This Hell," which was co-produced by Paul Epworth and Clarence Clarity. The song was written by Sawayama alongside Epworth, Vixen, and Lauren Aquilina. Below, listen to the song and view the album cover for Hold The Girl.
Sawayama shared the following in a press release:
"I had so much fun writing "This Hell." The past couple of years I’ve been listening to lots of female country singers and wanted to write a euphoric and tongue-in-cheek country-pop song. Country music at its core to me represents comfort, brilliant storytelling and authentic expression of the writer’s reality. I’ve been dreaming of working with Paul Epworth my entire career so I knew it was meant to be when we finished this song in a day. I put in as many iconic pop culture moments as I can, but the song is more than that.
It’s an important song for me given the human rights that are being taken away from minorities at a rapid rate in the name of traditional religious beliefs, more specifically I was thinking about the rights being taken away from the LGBTQ community when I wrote this song. When the world tells us we don't deserve love and protection, we have no choice but to give love and protection to each other. This Hell is better with you."
Last month, Sawayama joined Brazilian singer-songwriter Pabllo Vittar on "Follow Me." Back in February, she joined Charli XCX in the music video "Beg For You," a single taken from CRASH. Rina Sawayama released her debut album, SAWAYAMA, in 2020.
Read more about SAWAYAMA, which we named one of our favorite albums of 2020.
Hold The Girl cover art.
