What I’ve missed from the pop market of the last few years is that no one seems to be wanting to have any fun, with all the rush to be taken seriously and prove themselves in a genre that, of the last three or four years, seems only capable of faux-seriousness or paying homage to greater acts of the past. Why is it like this? What’s keeping the girls down? Why is fun such a dirty word nowadays? Perhaps the lesson we failed to learn from Kesha’s early years is that vapidity is not a crime, especially when it is crafted well.
And that’s like I like so much about Rina Sawayama – she understands how more than ever, self-indulgence is the basis of pop. She always remains a little above it all, however, a little tantalisingly aloof. She knows the game. Like Kesha was famous for doing! And that’s what is so fun about Comme des Garçons – that initial layered oooooooooohhhhhhhhh is something designed to reverb in a tight space within the club, where you’re supposed to be feeling yourself and indulging your own ego. It’s an anthem to snarky, smirking confidence, not milquetoast ‘just be self-empowered if ur woman <3’ repetitive Fight Song nonsense. I’m deeply looking forward to Rina’s debut album in a few weeks, the latest graduate from the School of Charli XCX and PC Music Theory as a whole.
Oh, and the Pabllo Vittar mix is even better.
