Hold the Girl is the second studio album by Japanese-British singer Rina Sawayama. It was released on 16 September 2022 by Dirty Hit. The lead single from the album, entitled "This Hell", was released on 18 May 2022. The album, recorded between 2020 and 2021, features production from collaborators including Paul Epworth, Clarence Clarity, Stuart Price, and Marcus Andersson. Clarence Clarity also produced much of Sawayama's debut album Sawayama (2020).
The album's lead single "This Hell", a country pop song with "glam rock riffs",[9] was called a "thrilling empowerment anthem" by Paste's Jade Gomez, who suggested its first lyric, "Let's go girls", nods Shania Twain's similar introduction in her 1999 song "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!". The author affirmed that the song introduces Sawayama's approach on country music.[18] Sawayama reflected that the genre "represents comfort, brilliant storytelling and authentic expression of the writer's reality"; she dubbed the song "euphoric and tongue-in-cheek". She worked with Paul Epworth in "This Hell", a collaboration she had "dream[ed]" of doing, and they finished the track in one day.[18] According to Sawayama, the track was written as a response to "human rights that are being taken away from minorities at a rapid rate in the name of traditional religious beliefs", particularly the rights of the LGBT community;[19] Sawayama stated: "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".[18] The song references gay icons,[9] namely Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Diana, Princess of Wales, and criticises the paparazzi's "cruelty" towards them.[20]
Writing for Rolling Stone UK, Hannah Ewens stated that the album's title track presents Sawayama singing with 2000s R&B vocals and "opens like a holy gesture to Madonna's 'Like a Prayer' and becomes an emotional dancefloor filler". Rob Sheffield of the American edition of the same publication likened the track to Lady Gaga. The author described "Catch Me in the Air" as a celebration of Sawayama's relationship with her mother, written like a "Corrs song as if pitched to Gwen Stefani". The singer herself stated that she "wanted to write about this weird relationship with single parents. You do catch each other in the air". The seventh track, "Your Age", is a "mix of bhangra and electro-warp sound effects". The ninth track, "Frankenstein" is a "tense and tetchy indie track featuring the singer begging someone to therapise her, to 'put me together, make me better'", and featuring a "digital 'hey, hey, hey' chant halfway between AC/DC and the Village People"
Album Tracklisting:
01. Minor Feelings
02. Hold The Girl
03. This Hell
04. Catch Me In The Air
05. Forgiveness
06. Holy (Till You Let me Go)
07. Your Age
08. Imagining
09. Frankenstein
10. Hurricanes
11. Send My Love to John
12. Phantom
13. To Be Alive
14. Flavour of the Month (Japanese Bonus Track)
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