Rina Sawayama flings out a 4th single from Hold the Girl, “Phantom”

Another week, another Rina Sawayama single to burn through. The rollout for Rina’s second studio album is a mess, but I’m not gonna bang on about it again. I’ve said enough. But I’m sure that having said that, I’mma say more by the end of this post.

“Phantom” is the fourth single off of Hold the Girl, and I’m sure there will be a fifth announced by the end of this week.

It’s a shame that Rina is releasing these songs in a such a throwaway manner. Especially this one, because “Phantom” might just be my favourite song of them all. And it’s probably the one song that has the most potential to really cross over and catch a new audience, in a similar way that a song like Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” did - which “Phantom” reminds me somewhat of.

I believe that each person has a specific moment in their childhood when they definitively knew who they were and the kind of person they wanted to be. But then self doubt and people around them somehow convinced them that person was wrong, or was too far removed from the version of you they had in their heads. So “Phantom” has a very real message behind it, which I think will touch a lot people in the same ways that “Catch Me in the Air” and “Hold the Girl” did. Or would have, had Rina given the songs a chance.

I think “Phantom” is a great song. It’s easily my favourite of the Hold the Girl singles we’ve gotten thus far. It will go down a storm at concerts. It’s a very stadium rousing, phone in the air with the light on type of song. But as was the case with “Catch Me in the Air”, the timing for a song like this is completely off. “Phantom” shoulda been a Christmas single. If Rina had shot a classic J-pop winter ballad music video (which the Spice Girls yoinked for “Goodbye”), and thrown some bells and a children’s choir on a single version of the song, “Phantom” coulda hit real different. But nope. She flung this song out at the tail end of summer, at a point when everybody still wants to shake ass. “Phantom” won’t chart for shit. But clearly Rina isn’t trying to bag a hit based on how she’s releasing these singles.

I really do not understand the singles strategy for Hold the Girl. And with each single that Rina releases, I wonder if “This Hell” was always planned to be the lead single, because it’s quickly becoming the outlier song. There seems to be a definite theme and message that Rina is wanting to get across with “Catch Me in the Air”, “Hold the Girl” and “Phantom”, and “This Hell” doesn’t feel like it’s a part of this narrative. I’m sure on the album it will be. But just looking at the singles, it stands out like...well. Hell. It’s really unfortunate, because each of these singles have hit potential, but Rina’s team just aren’t doing them justice. “This Hell” was given up on far too early. And all of the the follow-ups have released at the wrong times and had zero support.

I can’t imagine on what planet seen via the James Webb Space Telescope that burning through singles this quickly would be considered a good strategy. But I hope it’s doing something that I’m not seeing, and that it results in Hold the Girl selling well.

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💿 Rina reviews: This Hell | Sawayama | Rina
📀 Rina revision: Sawayama (The Random J Pop Revised Expanded Edition)
🗄️ Rina shit: That time Rina performed This Hell on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon | That time Rina performed at Coachella | That time Rina got shafted because of racism and xenophobia | That time Rina met Hikaru Utada | That time Rina released a gay anthem and gave it an awful music video