SOS: SZA’s masterpiece
After the runaway success of her debut album Ctrl, SZA has openly admitted to feeling the pressure when it came to creating her second album. But after zeroing in on all the relatable chaos of being human, she’s put together SOS, a stunning, genre-fluid album, by turns vulnerable, pop-sweet, bold and, as she says herself, “pissed-off”. And it’s a genuine smash hit.
2023 may be mere weeks old, but it is tempting to suggest it is already the year of SZA. Since the release of her second studio album SOS at the end of 2022, the American genre-bending singer and songwriter has been riding a wave of enormous popularity, which has translated into commercial success, critical acclaim and a raft of record-breaking chart appearances. As she ascends to the top of the Australian singles chart this week for the very first time with ‘Kill Bill’– and SOS soars to number 2 on the album charts – it is apparent SZA is in the most confident phase of her creativity yet.
Coming almost six years after the release of her critically acclaimed 2017 debut album Ctrl, which hit number 3 on the US album charts and earned five Grammy nominations, SOS is a remarkably accomplished album and deserving of the accolades that have rained down on it since its release. Beginning work on the album not long after the release of Ctrl, SZA recently revealed she recorded hundreds of songs for SOS, which she eventually whittled down to 23 tracks. The collection was inspired in part by love lost, but she says the main inspiration was her desire to no longer be the socially accepted “nice girl”, telling HOT 97 that “The general theme is ‘I’m pissed’, so I hope that’s understood.”
Like everything SZA does, these songs are a window into her soul, with honest, vulnerable and raw lyrics, as relatable as they are intensely personal. SZA is never afraid to own her complexity as a human, with her lyrics covering heartbreak, love, self-image and mental health, as well as the dynamic interplay between feelings of extreme self-confidence and crippling self-doubt. “I got everything that I need, and I want more / … I’m betting on me,” she sings on ‘Conceited’, following it with the gentle ‘Special’ that exposes the flipside of that confidence: “I got pimples where my beauty marks should be / … I wish I was special / I gave all my special away to a loser / Now I’m just a loser.”
SZA has often spoken of her difficulty in finding her footing musically, and also her frustration at being pigeonholed by genre. As a Black woman, she says, more often than not her music is defined through the lens of race with little appreciation of the depth of her music. “It’s very lazy to just throw me in the box of R&B,” she told Consequence last year. “I love making Black music, period. Something that is just full of energy. Black music doesn’t have to just be R&B. We started rock ‘n’ roll. Why can’t we just be expansive and not reductive?” In an environment where artists are increasingly becoming genre-agnostic, SOS highlights SZA as perhaps the smartest genre-blurrer in the business. There is no denying R&B and neo-soul form the foundation of the album, but it is a foundation that SZA builds into a multitude of different layers, producing a listening experience with depth, variety and the constant thrill of sonic surprises. ‘Gone Girl’, a gorgeous, pared-back soul track, is followed by its polar opposite, the sultry, brazen rap ‘Smoking on my Ex Pack’. Lizzo co-write ‘F2F’ expertly recreates 2000s pop-rock and will have you swooning in nostalgia, while ‘I Hate U’ wraps slinky electronica around an R&B core. A collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Ghost in the Machine’, plays with dreamy indie-pop, and the emotive, at times heartbreaking ‘Nobody Gets Me’, which tells the story of SZA’s break-up with her former fiancé, sees her experiment with country-tinged balladry.
Fifth single ‘Kill Bill’ – currently in the top echelon of charts across the world, and sitting at just under 250 million global streams on Spotify alone – perhaps sums up SOS in a delicious two and a half minutes. Inspired by the movie of the same name and exploring SZA’s vengeful thoughts after going through a break-up (“I might kill my ex / I still love him, though / Rather be in jail than alone”), it plays with a array of genres, starting with somnolent trip-hop and flowing into sweetly soaring pop melodies, R&B harmonic stylings and even hints of country. It is arguably SZA’s finest achievement to date.
For the last few years it has felt like SZA has been hovering on the cusp of true greatness. With her rising star in the wake of Ctrl perhaps unfairly overshadowed by her high-profile feature spots on hits by Maroon 5 (‘What Lovers Do’) and Doja Cat (‘Kiss Me More’), SZA has proven with SOS that she is a once-in-a-generation talent – and a superstar. SOS is eclectic, joyful, heartbreaking, life affirming, soul grabbing and absolutely mesmerising. It’s an album we suspect will not only be one of the biggest albums of 2023, but be held up as a classic of the 2020s in years to come. Dive in, and it will be imprinted on your soul forever.
SOS is out now via Sony Music Australia. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things SZA you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
This article is sponsored by Sony Music Australia
