XS

“XS” is the second track from Japanese singer and songwriter Rina Sawayama’s debut studio album “Sawayama”, which was released on the 17th April 2020. “Sawayama” has received widespread acclaim from music critics, with the album scoring 90/100 on Metacritic.

“XS” was written by Sawayama, Kyle Shearer, Chris Lyon and Nate Campany, with production done by Shearer and Clarence Clarity. “XS” is a track about constantly wanting more, as well as poking fun and criticism at capitalism. Rina Sawayama has spoken to both Genuis.com as well as Pitchfork about the track. For Genius.com, Sawayama spoke about the song-writing process for “XS”: “I wrote this with Nate Campany, Kyle Shearer and Chris Lyon, who are super pop writers. It was the first session we ever did together in LA. They were noodling around with guitar riffs and I was like, “I want to write something that’s really abrasive, but also pop that freaks you out.” It’s the good amount of jarring, the good side of jarring that it wakes you up a little bit every four bars or whatever. I told them, “I really love N.E.R.D and I just want to hear those guitars.” For the interview with Pitchfork, Sawayama discussed the meaning behind “XS”: “‘XS’ is a song that mocks capitalism in a sinking world. Given that we all know global climate change is accelerating and human extinction is a very real possibility within our lifetime it seemed hilarious to me that brands were still coming out with new makeup palettes every month and public figures were doing a gigantic house tour of their gated property in Calabasas in the same week as doing a ‘sad about Australian wild fires’ Instagram post. I mean I’m guilty of turning a blind eye too, because otherwise it makes me depressed. We’re all hypocrites because we are all capitalists, and it’s a trap that I don’t see us getting out of. I wanted to reflect the chaos of this post-truth climate change denying world in the metal guitar stabs that flare up like an underlying zit between the 2000s R&B beat that reminds you of a time when everything was alright.”

The music video for “XS” was released on the 17th April 2020, and was directed by A;I Kurr. The video features Rina Sawayama trying to sell a Gold liquid of some sort, on a telemarketing channel, featuring other telemarketers, and Sawayama eventually is shown to be a robot that ends up dying in a pile of rubbish. Within 5 days of the video’s release, “XS” has received almost 480 thousand views with over 53 thousand likes.

Release Date: 2nd March 2020

Songwriter/s: Kyle Shearer, Chris Lyon, Nate Campany & Rina Sawayama

Producer/s: Clarence Clarity & Kyle Shearer

Label: Dirty Hit

Music Video Release Date: 17th April 2020

Music Video Director: Ali Kurr

Chart Rankings: “XS” is currently #513 on the UK iTunes charts, and #306 on Apple Music Brazil charts.

The lyrics to “XS” can be accessed here: LINK