“Cherry”

The Japan-born, London-based singer Rina Sawayama doesn’t downplay her ambition: She recently professed, in no uncertain terms, her wish “to break records” in the pop industry. On her march to stardom, Sawayama splits her gaze between the future and the past, writing songs about digital-age anxiety, served up in the glossy trappings of early-Aughts pop hits. Her latest “Cherry,” is a sweet-as-pie take on budding romance, written with an eye toward representation.

The past year in pop has seen queer artists grow increasingly candid in their expression of desire. With “Cherry,” Sawayama joins a cohort that includes Troye Sivan, Kehlani, and others, whose songs diversify the romantic narratives encoded in mainstream music. As on previous releases, Sawayama nods to her pop forebears: There are notes of Mariah Carey when she slips into her featherlight, borderline-lazy head voice, and hints of Justin Timberlake’s percussive, nasal tone when she sings, “Won’t you be my baby?” (plus, a near-exact copy of the horn lick from “Suit & Tie”). But from the top of the track, when she recounts an electric encounter on a subway (“You looked my way/With your girl gaze”), Sawayama pushes back on the heteronormative bent of the songs she listened to growing up. As she has explained, “I just think the reason why I wasn’t so comfortable with my sexuality was because there was no one on TV or anywhere that I could point to.” On “Cherry,” Sawayama positions herself to be someone others can look to while capturing the sugar high that is infatuation: a universal phenomenon.