Music video: Rina Sawayama escapes Creel House in “Hold the Girl”

I wasn’t expecting to get a music video for “Hold the Girl”, given that we didn’t get one for “Catch Me in the Air”. But I guess this song had to get a video, given it is the album title track. And it turns out that most of the footage in the Hold the Girl album announcement teaser trailer was from this music video. I genuinely thought Rina had just shot random scenes in a field specifically for the trailer, because ‘art’. But there was a method to what seemed like madness. I still can’t understand the method with these single releases though.

When I first heard “Hold the Girl”, I wasn’t keen on it. But this Mariah Carey’s “Butterfly”, meets Eternals, meets The Wicker Man, meets Stranger Things music video did make me warm to the song a little more. I do wonder if I will like this song more when I hear it live, because I can definitely envision “Hold the Girl” hitting at a concert. “Hold the Girl” just doesn’t feel as big as I think it should be, nor as big as the song thinks it is. But live performances could do the trick, the same way they did for “Catch Me in the Air”. I can’t even listen to the studio recorded / released version of “Catch Me in the Air”, because the live version is just plain superior in every way.

I still think the timing for a single like this is wrong though. As with “Catch Me in the Air”, “Hold the Girl” is such a post album release single, which would be better suited at the top or the end of the year. Right now, Rina should still be pushing the shit out of “This Hell” and having that move up the charts. But here we are. Single number three. With a fourth which will probably get announced next week.

It is nice to see Rina getting bigger budgets for music videos and giving us production though. And whilst I’m still not super keen on the song, I do prefer the music video to “This Hell”, which didn’t do anything for the song whatsoever.

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💿 Rina reviews: This Hell | Sawayama | Rina
📀 Rina revision: Sawayama (The Random J Pop Revised Expanded Edition)
Rina music videos: This Hell | Lucid | Bad Friend | Comme Des Garçons (Like The Boys) | STFU | Cherry