This Hell
Rina Sawayama
A glam-rock cathedral built from electric guitars, stomping percussion, and a gospel choir that sounds like it belongs in a revival tent that caught fire in the best possible way. The production is unapologetically maximalist — riff upon riff, a country-tinged melodic line cutting through the arena-scale bombast. Sawayama's voice operates in full theatrical command here: arch and knowing in the verses, then cracking open into something genuinely soaring in the chorus. She has studied the performers who understood how to weaponize spectacle, and this song is the proof. The lyrical core reclaims religious condemnation of queerness with gleeful irreverence — not by arguing against damnation but by accepting the invitation with enthusiasm, turning exclusion into celebration. It sits at the convergence of glam rock's pageantry, country's directness, and pop's structural precision, and it earns every excess. Released during a period of intensified culture war rhetoric around LGBTQ+ rights, it arrived as both armor and anthem. This is a song for Pride parades and for car windows down on a highway, for the specific joy of being exactly who you are in front of people who'd prefer you weren't. It rewards volume.
fast
2020s
dense, loud, celebratory
British-Japanese pop, LGBTQ+ Pride tradition, glam rock lineage
Pop, Rock. Glam Rock. euphoric, defiant. Builds from knowing, arch irony to full-throated soaring celebration, transforming condemnation into communal joy.. energy 9. fast. danceability 7. valence 9. vocals: arch and theatrical female, soaring, commanding, gleefully irreverent. production: electric guitars, gospel choir, stomping percussion, arena bombast, country-tinged melodic line. texture: dense, loud, celebratory. acousticness 2. era: 2020s. British-Japanese pop, LGBTQ+ Pride tradition, glam rock lineage. Pride parades or driving a highway with the windows down, fully inhabiting who you are in front of people who'd prefer you didn't.