SZA - SOS Review
SZA’s SOS, buzzer beater for album of the year?
Not much happens in December in the world of album releases, mainly because we are being lobotomised with the metal spike of yuletide, routinely being subjected to Chris Martin vomiting up some saccharine Christmas shit — can we please have a moratorium on Christmas music that’s been recorded post the Pogues ‘Fairy Tale of New York’? This, along with the dearth of good new music, should make us ecstatic about SZA’s sophomore album SOS.
It's been well documented that she’s struggled to come to terms with her success since her breakout 2017 debut, Ctrl. The allusion to Princess Diana in the album art and the not-so-subtle album title is certainly not running from this. This, along with the drama surrounding the release of SOS —the album should have come out earlier in the year (the first single ‘Good Days’ released two years ago, and a second, ‘I Hate U’, following in the summer of 2021), plus accusations that her label had kidnapped the album and that this may be her last all added fuel to the fire.
Ctrl showed that SZA, aka Solána Imani Rowe, was not someone who was to be confined by genre, and SOS doesn’t disappoint in this regard. The album opens with the 90s-gilded R&B of the title track ‘SOS’ and is followed by the melodic pop of ‘Kill Bill’ with the catchy chorus, “I might kill my ex, not the best idea, his new girlfriend’s next how’d I get here?” We’ve all been there. The genre-defying continues with some banging summer-ready singles like ‘F2F’, a fist-pumping pop-punk anthem — the refrain “I fuck’em coz I miss you” to the point, you know if you know kind of pop simplicity; and the mellow summer breeze like track, ‘Conceited’. Even though those songs are more upbeat, the album’s tone is still one of loss. SOS is undoubtedly a break-up album, and the heartstrings are tugged on the acoustic sad-girl-worthy ‘Special’, and ‘Nobody Gets Me’, Rowe’s vocals on full display on this anthem in waiting — the lyrics, “You were balls deep, now we beefin’, had me butt- naked at the MGM” possibly the lyric of the year? Doubling down on this mood, she is joined by none other than sad-girl queen Phoebe Bridgers on the moody existential ‘Ghost in the Machine’. The album also sees Rowe collaborate with Travis Scott on ‘Open Arms’, providing the album with one of its many highlights, a brutal slow jam reflection on how we stay when we know we shouldn’t, “Who needs self-esteem anyway?” she reflects.
Yes, this album sounds out of place in the dying light of 2022, and some criticism levelled at it is that it is unwieldy and slightly exhausting. I’d suggest that this is an album of two halves, a double album even and is well worth every second. It is long at twenty-three tracks — 10,514 steps worth of music, one helpful Instagram influencer pointed out. Not a bad thing; get your daily steps in — good for your mental health, bonus — but more importantly, it means your ears are not being assaulted by Chris Martin for an entire hour, eight minutes and seven seconds. Forget Grammys; that’s Nobel Peace Prize worthy.