Not a bitter Sisters of Mercy side project cover…
[Video]
[6.50]
Michael Hong: This one goes out to the boy at elementary school who asked me why my eyes were so small. Who then refused to accept my explanation that it was a sunny day but insisted it was because of my “genes.” But “STFU!” isn’t anywhere as bold as it’s instrumental would have you believe. The guitar does all the heavy lifting while Rina Sawayama’s attempt at sinister comes out more as withdrawn. In fact, Rina Sawayama only manages the slight satisfaction of an imagined retaliation, all the while laughing off the incident with awkward discomfort, directly playing into the trope of a model minority. “Shut the fuck up.” Here, it’s unfortunately more of a wish than a command, the type of reaction you’d expect from a shy elementary school-aged boy shrugging off a comment about the size of his eyes.
[4]
Julian Axelrod: Every rapper under 30 wants to sound like Evanescence, but only Rina can sing like Amy Lee.
[7]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Rina Sawayama still has trouble writing catchy songs, but “STFU!” at least eschews such an approach to her benefit. The boilerplate nu-metal is mostly exciting for how it’s contrasted with choruses that replace overt aggression with poised snark: “Have you ever thought about taping your big mouth shut?/’Cause I have many times” she elegantly sings over music box melodies. It’s in these passages that she feels most threatening.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Beginning with a screech and anchored by identikit metal power chords, “STFU!” generates the enthusiasm of a variety show banger complete with mildly offensive hook.
[6]
Ian Mathers: After “Cherry”, which if anything I may have slightly underrated at the time, I certainly didn’t expect the next Rina Sawayama song I heard to start off sounding more like Deftones, but then again I like them and Sawayama has nailed the balance of including some floaty parts (and in this case, making them pretty viciously funny, even if there’s more justified aggression than actual joy to her laughter here) to make all the pummeling even more effective by contrast. If you’ve somehow gotten this far in life without understanding where the frustration is coming from, I highly recommend the video version; those first 90 seconds ought to have anyone grinding their teeth.
[8]
Vikram Joseph: First things first: the riff is absolutely monstrous, and the video is great (and contextualises the song nicely). I’m just not sure the contrasts are either as jarringly effective or as interesting as Rina Sawayama thinks they are, much like when Grimes and Poppy tried a similar trick. In the verses her vocals semi-successfully occupy an eerie middle-ground between R&B and downshifted nu-metal, but the chorus doesn’t work for her at all – musically undercooked, and aiming for a playful menace vocally but missing by some distance. “Have you ever thought about taping your big mouth shut? Cos I have, many times,” is… not a good line (although I appreciate the sentiment) and is degraded further by a delivery that sounds damp and twee. It’s fun to see Rina fearlessly gerrymandering the boundaries of her genre, but “STFU!” is a riff in search of a song, and makes me want to dig out White Pony far more than it makes me want to press repeat.
[5]
Will Adams: It’s the same nu-metal-meets-pop-chorus trick that Poppy and Grimes have done, but by focusing less on contrast for contrast’s sake, Rina Sawayama lets her statement roar through. Extra point for the mid-song cackle that swoops into a witchy melody.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: I, for one, love the attempts on the part of the Extremely Online contingent of pop stars like Grimes, Poppy, and now Rina Sawayama to take the sound of part back to the hyper-specific part of time that produced The Lucy Nation or Dollshead or Republica (god bless you, Charli XCX, you tried, even if you don’t think it was worth trying).
[8]
Brad Shoup: The dream of Total Request Live realized: plaintive dance-pop and limber nu-metal melded together. The streams draw close and meld and break away; Sawayama hits about a dozen emotional registers without once holding for applause. Maybe, having currently immersed myself in the music of 20 years ago, I’m overrating this. But it’s the boldest strike yet in the modern rock revival.
[9]
Joshua Lu: The garishness is the point; Rina Sawayama’s previous style of throwback pop/R&B wouldn’t work over this unmediated rebuttal to racial microaggressions. But once the surprise of hearing her belt over a gritty electric guitar wears off, you’re left with not much more than a decent Poppy track and a message that doesn’t require over three minutes to be conveyed.
[5]
Alex Clifton: Please don’t stfu, Rina. Keep going. I want more of this.
[7]
Kylo Nocom: The video contextualizes the anger with micro-aggressions, yet the universality of the song itself ruins the impact. Any of the delicious sludge one could get from the verses has its effect negated by a chorus that amounts to a bad meme.
[6]