Week of 9/1: Rina Sawayama, daine, Adeline Hotel
Eric crowns their favorite Rina Sawayama song, Eli enjoys Oli Sykes' hyperpop collab with daine, and Michael gushes about a lush, expansive new Adeline Hotel tune.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him), Eric Bennett (they/them), Michael Brooks (he/him) and Miranda Reinert (she/her). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. On Substack, we’re also a weekly roundup of songs. Our format is simple: each of our four hosts picks a song they love and writes about it. There will be one free post every week, and more at the end of every month for paid subscribers. For the sake of your wallet, don’t start a paid subscription on Substack. Instead, sign up at the 2$ tier or higher on Patreon and we will gift you a subscription.
Rina Sawayama - “Bad Friend”
Eric Bennett:
Much of the praise that surrounded Rina Sawayama’s SAWAYAMA came from those who were awestruck by her ability to pull from genres outside of pop, or her embrace of pop stylings thought of as out of date. Her incorporation of nu-metal wasn’t unique to her with acts like Poppy releasing in the same year, but SAWAYAMA still stood out amongst a crowded field of pop records. While I love songs that focus more on its nu-metal-pop crossover sound, my favorite is maybe the most straightforward on the record. The self-deprecating jam “Bad Friend” not only makes a song about insecurity fun, but it also nods to Sawayama’s love for the genre.
One thing I love about her is that she so loudly loves pop music and is inspired by a group of pop stars I’ve been hoping to see more discussion of as influential on newer artists. Rina loves Lady Gaga, and the videos from SAWAYAMA make that clear as they’re colorful, campy, and narratively rich. The video for Bad Friend even has Sawayama in drag, something that people have speculated may be inspired by Gaga’s short-lived drag character Jo Calderone.
Rina wrote the song after a summer in Tokyo saw a friendship deteriorate, and reflects on the part her behavior played in that. The vocals are manipulated in a way that Rina has attributed to being an homage to alternative music’s 2000s pop idol, Imogen Heap. This vocal effect being only on the chorus helps add rigidity and structure to the hook, where she is already coldly examining herself, while the verses are untouched, raw, and read like aimless musings. Perhaps the most distinct facet of the song is its bridge, which Rina describes as a “take ‘em to church moment.” It sounds like they recorded it in a church, the many shouts of “put your hands up if you’re not good at this stuff” full of religious conviction, and adorned with timed handclaps. The song never gets bogged down in the layers of influences, effects, or theatrics. The result is still winding, slick, and catchy.
daine - “SALT” (Feat. Oli Sykes)
Eli Enis:
Almost exactly a year ago, back when we used this newsletter to review a single song every weekday, Eric and I wrote about an emerging pop artist from Australia named daine. I didn’t know much about her at the time other than that Charli XCX was a fan, which was enough to make her an Artist to Watch in the world of hyperpop despite only having a handful of songs out. At the time, I didn’t really see what distinguished her from the overstuffed crowd of artists making 100 gecs-adjacent pop music, but earlier this summer I got a heads-up about a song she was releasing with Bring Me the Horizon frontman Oli Sykes. My interest was piqued.
In some ways, I’m surprised it took this long for the former deathcore pretty boy-turned-metalcore tastemaker-turned-alt-pop-influencer to make his way into the hyperpop landscape. Bring Me the Horizon put out a demented beat tape in 2019 that boasted features from Halsey, downtempo indie act Happyalone., and metalcore upstarts Lotus Eater. The band’s 2020 project (somewhere between an EP and a mixtape) was an even weirder and more scattered variety of confrontational collisions between pop, rock, metal and more. I’m sure by someone’s liberal definition of the inherently nebulous hyperpop tag, POST HUMAN: SURVIVAL ORDER counted.
Therefore, Sykes’ heavy presence on daine’s new song “SALT” feels like a natural fit. Beginning with moody emo guitar, daine croons through minty auto-tune for a few bars before Sykes’ voice enters with a haunting warble. The hook explodes with glitchy dubstep wobbles and surging blasts of distorted guitar, and the vocalists’ strained yelps click into place for a tuneful harmony. It’s great. I’m also intrigued by how easily Sykes’ singing could be swapped into any BMTH song from the last eight years and still sound right at home. I’d be shocked if they don’t become one of the most over-referenced influences on underground pop in the next five years. If anyone will take me up on it, I think I could make pretty good money betting that Sykes will be the Travis Barker of the mid-2020s — producing and popping up on everything until his presence becomes exhausting. For now, I’m on-board.
Adeline Hotel - “The Cherries Are Speaking”
Michael Brooks:
Brooklyn songwriter Dan Knishkowy, who makes music as Adeline Hotel, has been plenty busy since the release of Solid Love back in May of last year. He kicked things off this year with Good Timing, a mostly instrumental album centered around improvised acoustic guitar playing, and he’s already announced the follow-up to that record with The Cherries Are Speaking which drops this October. In an interview with Petal Motel about his upcoming record, Knishkowy says he sees his last three albums “…as a trilogy, sonically different but spiritually aligned.” which I think is the perfect way to approach his music.
Whether he’s working with a full band like he did on Solid Love, performing as just himself armed with an acoustic guitar like on Good Timing, or sitting down in front of a piano and crafting gorgeous baroque pop like on the title track to The Cherries Are Speaking, the best Adeline Hotel songs evoke the same feeling regardless of which instruments are being played. Featuring backing vocals from Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats, “The Cherries Are Speaking” is lush and expansive, and even though it doesn’t really sound like anything Knishkowy has done before his distinct style of songwriting still shines through.