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Female artists are breaking out of the confines of genres and album expectations and embracing creative freedom like never before. At the head of the movement: SZA, with her sophomore album SOS. Released five and a half years after her acclaimed debut Ctrl, SOS is comprised of 23 tracks representing a multitude of genres, from R&B hip-hop to indie pop-rock. With nominations in the R&B, Rap, and Pop genres at the 2024 GRAMMYs, SZA clearly doesn't want to be defined as anything but an artist who takes the time to create a multifaceted album with impeccable dedication and absolutely no pretentiousness.
Stand-out tracks: "Used (feat. Don Toliver)" "Gone Girl" "I Hate U" "Good Days"
My favorites: "Seek and Destroy" "Ghost in the Machine (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)" "Nobody Gets Me"
Hip-hop style album intro "SOS" is carefree and organic, setting the tone for the next hour of music as a tumultuous exploration of crumbling relationships and grappling with the search for serenity and self-assurance and leading into SZA's chart-topping "Kill Bill." This SZA’s revenge, and a low-key crazy girl anthem, with SZA proclaiming "Rather be in Hell than alone" as she ruminates on the dark inner desire for her to say “If I can’t have you, no one should.”
SZA takes resentful responsibility for the painful endings of relationships on sultry "Seek & Destroy." She accepts her own flaws with exasperation, but prioritizes herself over surface-level relationships, stating "I hate to do it to you/Do what I gotta do." After experimenting with pop and rap over the first few tracks, SZA leans into her soulful indie-R&B niche with "Love Language.” If reading SOS like a diary, this is the chapter of the album where the lyrics are outlined in little hearts and SZA gushes about her new lover.
SOS hits its groove with back-to-back "Used (feat. Don Toliver)" and "Snooze." This is passionate diaristic writing at its finest, with ear-catching lyrics like "My sanity's at a 6.7" and "Can't lose myself to your ego, I wanna say/Love me better when you try less/I don’t take much, just need your honesty.”
Break-up anthem "Gone Girl" is a moment of confidence and self-assurance achieved, with almost gospel-style backing vocals and spelled out "I need more space and security/I need less voices, just you and me/I need your touch, not your scrutiny." This one is a high point on the album, shining with moments of stunning production and vocal performance. Somehow "Ghost in the Machine (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)" achieves an alternative R&B track, with SZA "craving humanity." The thrumming production, opposites-attract vocal styles of SZA and Phoebe Bridgers, and the spoken outro again referring to “Those who have forsaken their humanity” make this track stand out as a moment of spiraling about feeling so small in the grand scheme of life.
Gone are the smooth R&B tones SZA is known for as the experimental tracks on the album continue on "F2F," which leans into pop-rock style instrumentation and vocalization. While earlier in the album SZA has reflected on the pains and metamorphosis of crumbling relationships and self-discovery, this one is purely lighthearted and carefree sonically while letting out frustration over missing someone lyrically. Stylistically, "Nobody Gets Me" turns acoustic with wide-spanning vocals that make you almost double-take, wondering if this is the same SZA you've been listening to for the first 13 tracks of the album.
The back half of the album is the string of tracks that slow down the pacing a little, with "Conceited," "Special," and "Too Late" leaning into acoustic R&B-influenced pop. These are lighter moments on the album where SZA appears more confessional and lost in her daydream thoughts. While the messy confessional lyricism that's apparent across the entirety of SOS remains, the production shifts back to trap as the album picks up the pace on "Far" and "Shirt." The ultimate descriptor of SOS can be found in the lyrics of thumping off-the-cuff groove "I Hate U": "Heavy reminiscin'/Heavy on the missin' you/Wish it was different than what it was/I've been up, baby/Lost in the lie of us."
The finale of SOS comes with the gleaming acoustics, birds chirping, soft drum patterns, electronic production, and “Gotta let go of weight, can’t keep what’s holding me” lyricism of "Good Days. While SOS has shown us every shade of SZA’s emotions, this is the culmination and resolve of the album as a whole, with every messy, rejected, assured, sincere emotion spilled across its metaphorical pages signed off on with hope for the future.
GRAMMY for Album of the Year
While I can say that for me, SOS as a complete album is far from my favorite album, even amongst the 2024 Album of the Year nominees, I can't deny that it's an astronomical musical achievement. This was clearly an ambitious passion project for SZA that catapulted her towards connection with millions of listeners and brought her the highest level of solo success of her career thus far (see: breaking a 54-year-old record held by Aretha Franklin for the most weeks atop the R&B/Hip-Hop Charts for a female artist). Like the modern love stories, both romantic and personal, illustrated across SOS, the album is messy, vulnerable, complex, and freeing. This is far from a concept album, although the themes of confessional, emotional desire for connection are evident across the album as a whole. Personally, I feel like SOS would benefit from addition through subtraction with the elimination of a few of its 23 tracks to still communicate its message effectively. With its astronomical critical acclaim, army of diehard fans, and ambitious genre-bending relatable musical prowess, SOS remains a top contender for Album of the Year.
AM I OBSESSED?
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