Rina Sawayama releases a bonus edition of Hold the Girl, featuring a new version of “Imagining” with Amaarae

Rina Sawayama has released a Bonus Edition of Hold the Girl which features two additional songs. “Flavour of the Month”, which featured as a bonus track on the Japanese release of Hold the Girl, that fans done heard months ago. And a new version of “Imagining”, which features Amaarae.

When I heard Amaarae was featuring on “Imagining” I was a little dumfounded, because she isn’t an obvious choice of artist to feature on such a song. But she fits it surprisingly well. I like how her verse feels like it pulls the entire song to her without it throwing the vibe of it or her own style off. I also appreciate that the mixing has been revised for the song, because the mix of the album version was muddy as fuck. But the price for the revised mix is some small tweaks and changes to the arrangement, none of which I like. So, the album version is still the version for me.

It would have been nice to have gotten a music video with Amaarae though, to really help it cut across her fans too. To some ‘It’s just a video. It wouldn’t make a difference.’ Except it would. Also Amaarae has a really cool approach to her style, which would compliment Rina’s. So they would have looked great together.

Whilst Amaarae works on this version of “Imagining”, I do have an artist in mind that Rina should have tapped to feature on a remix who would have been better.

BoA.

A lot of folk hated when BoA went a bit punk with “Forgive Me”, but I’ve not stopped playing that song. It might even be one of my favourite BoA songs.

Rina tapping BoA to feature on “Imagining” would have been a great look and gotten people talking in K-pop, J-pop and just pop in general - something I think would have been great for them both. BoA could do with a news story to do the rounds in Japanese music. And being in news cycles with Rina on the US and UK pop sites and blogs would create a great window for SM Entertainment to make BoA’s US album available on streaming worldwide. The Deluxe Version though. Because the streets need “Crazy About” and “Control” as well as “Eat You Up”, “Did Ya” and “Did It for Love”.

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💿 Rina reviews: Hold the Girl | This Hell | Sawayama | Rina

📀 Rina revisions: Hold the Girl | Sawayama (Deluxe Edition)