COOOK 76,406 Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 "SZA’s long, ambitious, luxurious new album solidifies her position as a generational talent, an artist who translates her innermost feelings into indelible moments." Spoiler SZA has mastered the art of the inner monologue, transforming deeply personal observations into gilded songs that feel intimate, relatable, and untouchable, all at once. On her remarkable debut album, CTRL, she narrated these contradictions through warbled melodies that threw modern R&B and pop song structure out the window, letting her voice weave in, over, and through the beats, in a style that recalled the jazzy structure of Joni Mitchell and the technical prowess of Minnie Riperton. Not having a traditional formula, it turned out, was a winning tack: CTRL was certified triple platinum this August, reflecting both its continued relevance and fans’ salivatory desperation for a follow-up five years later. Of course, she’s been busy in the time since, having dropped 16 singles or collabs—including the Oscar-nominated Black Panther track “All the Stars,” with Kendrick Lamar—an album’s worth of material unto itself, plus a small handful of wildly acidic videos like “Good Days” and “Shirt.” She had the summer of 2021 in a chokehold with the record-breaking cellophane candy that is “Kiss Me More,” with Doja Cat. She’s filming a movie. She dropped some Crocs. She taught herself to play musical bowls. Like, damn. The cover of SOS depicts SZA, a former marine biology major, perched on a diving board surrounded by the deep blue ocean, her face pointed contemplatively at the sky. She was inspired by a 1997 photograph of Princess Diana on Mohamed Al Fayed’s yacht taken one week before her death and said she wanted to pay homage to the “isolation” it conveyed. On SOS, she feels like a superwoman who deserves the world one minute, and a depressive second-stringer sacrificing her well-being for garbage men the next. She counteracts the millennial Bad Bitch/Sad Girl dichotomy (tale as old as time) by filling in the vast emotional space between. We already know SZA’s dedication to her work is indefatigable—amid public woes with her longtime record label TDE and her major-label partner RCA, she wrote hundreds of songs for what became SOS, so culling it to just 23 is, in context, an exercise in restraint. At the same time, SOS is a clear document of how extensively SZA has sharpened her songwriting since the exquisite CTRL, how she’s become an even more exacting lyricist and imaginative musician. While placing herself firmly in the tradition of R&B, she’s forcefully blasé about genre tropes. On SOS, she belts her face off on an instant classic “**** you” number (“I Hate U”) alongside a savage rap track that recalls the glory days of physical mixtapes (“Smokin on my Ex Pack”) and, perhaps improbably, a country song with a pop-punk chorus about revenge sex (“F2F”). Even amid her copious emotional toil, SZA still stands on her own terms. SOS ends with an Ol’ Dirty Bastard freestyle, which she pulled from old documentary footage shot by legendary R&B producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. The sample, which ended up in “Goin’ Down” on Return to the 36 Chambers, bookends her final missive on an album where she does what she does best while showcasing her stylistic versatility. “Give a **** what you prefer,” she rap-sings over a grimy boom-bap. “I’m too profound to go back and forth/With no average dork.” Maturity looks good on her—who among us hasn’t scolded herself with a version of “damn bitch you so thirsty,” as she intones on the soundly quotable “Shirt”? It’s that exact melange of confidence and pettiness that has engendered such passion for her music and persona. SZA’s talent is otherworldly, but you just might know someone a little like her, too. It might even be you. Full review here. Previous scores: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kimmo 79,736 Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Let me go stream it fully right away… Hottie Detector Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HookerOnAChurch 6,724 Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 That's great and very well deserved. I love this album. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperobject 66,771 Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 this album is just so good, I’m obsessed Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightadieu 4,460 Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Wish I could listen to F2F for the first time again Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Featured Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.