S.O.S - SZA's Masterpiece
/Rewind To 2022
2022 was no slouch when it came to great album releases. So many great projects came out: Kendrick Lamar, Rosalia, Pusha T, Conway The Machine, Earl Sweatshirt, Black Midi, Black Country New Road, Black Thought, MUNA…. One album however has seemed to stick with me more than any other.
SZA’s phenomenal RNB and Hip Hop record “SOS” is an odd album to conceptualize as a 2022 album; it came out so late in the year, December 9th to be exact, that initially I had almost counted it out in my year end wrap up. I already HAD my album of the year for 2022, JID’s “The Forever Story,” a phenomenal work with themes of family, systemic injustice and personal growth, and I already HAD a fantastic runner up with Ethel Caine. But it’s been almost 2 years now, 2 years officially in exactly a week after this blog post goes up, and in that time the album has grown to not only be my favorite album of 2022, but one of my favorite albums of all time.
In The Shadow Of Greatness
The album itself isn’t too conceptual. Unlike a lot of my other favorite albums there's no underlying narrative or high concept thematic elements that all neatly get wrapped up by the end. Initially looking at the album I had assumed it was just a long bloated tracklist of 23 songs made to boost streaming numbers that she had created in the five years since she had dropped her last album, however, sitting with the album and investing into each song it’s really the opposite. I was ready to be disappointed by this album at first, after all, it had been five whole years since we had last heard from SZA and the album she put out beforehand, CTRL, is an album I absolutely adore. CTRL is a perfectly compact album of 14 tracks segmented by pieces of a phone call with her mother examining concepts of control, relationships and learning to appreciate oneself. There’s no way this new album could ever match what CTRL accomplished right? Right… the thing is… it never needed to.
S.O.S abandons the tight cohesion and narrative, the stripped back sound and intimacy of CTRL, in favor of bombastic balls to the wall all out banger after banger. Track after track, SZA delivered flurries of energetic vocal performances, heartfelt belting about whatever she wants to talk about (usually relationships and how awesome she is), and pairs her lyrics with a wide variety of interesting, catchy and even borderline experimental instrumentals (relative to her usual genre.) One track is a haunting discussion of the mechanical music industry and losing ones humanity to algorithms, dueted by indie pop icon Phoebe Bridgers, the very next song on the record is a pop punk banger about insecurities and using hedonism and sensual self indulgence to forget a past lover.
S.O.S (Stand Out Songs)
I ended up taking this album piece by piece, taking every song one after the other and falling in love with each one individually rather than the album as a whole. Nowadays I put the whole album on rotation and sit through every track front to back at least once a week. I’ve listened to this album so much this year I’m surprised both my partner and I aren’t absolutely sick of it.
While I absolutely love every song on this album, I would like to give a shout out to a few favorites. Gone Girl is an amazing piano ballad that starts minimal, just SZA and a few keys, but by the end of the song transforms into this grand orchestral piece with sweeping strings. Ghost In The Machine is a track I’ve already mentioned but it’s so haunting and beautiful I have to tell you to listen to it again, also it has a gorgeous feature from Phoebe Bridgers. Finally, Seek and Destroy is an infectious banger with bouncy hip hop flows and a vocal performance that is just phenomenal.
Wrap It Up
Overall S.O.S is a phenomenal, diverse album with a wide range of styles, emotions and even genres. Every track on the album is phenomenal, weather its the heartbreaking pleading of Special or the egotistical boasting of Conceited, there’s greatness to be found all over this record.
If you haven’t given this one a chance yet, please do. It has become not only my favorite SZA record, but one of my favorite albums of all time, and has cemented SZA as one of my all time favorite artists, period.
