"The album is a perfect balence of girls-night-out friday and sad-girl-sunday" --TRiece Kushner, 10th grade
SZA has returned from the dead to bless us with SOS, a perfect way to wrap up 2022. The 23-track album has already done very well streamwise, hitting over 68 million streams accumulated on Spotify alone as of December 13th. It is a perfect balance of many different genres and topics, allowing the range of girls-night-out Friday and sad-girl-Sunday to be brought out together.
In SOS, SZA is not afraid to dabble in taboo topics, such as violence and drugs, which are usually frowned upon when women write about such things. SZA fights the double standard put on women with real lyrics and songs which allow people to connect with her and the album. You can see this in “Kill Bill” when she sings: “I might kill my ex, not the best idea. His new girlfriend’s next, how’d I get here?” and “I still love him, though. Rather be in jail than alone.” Who can’t relate to that?
Throughout the album she travels to new genres that we’ve never seen her do before, as she dabbles in rap, rock, indie pop, and alternative, as well as her usual sound. It creates a refreshing sound to the album. “Smoking on my Ex Pack”, a fast-beating song screaming confidence and self worth, is just four tracks away from “Special”, a slow and delicate song about insecurities, as SZA wants to be “That girl from the Gucci store” saying that she wishes she wants to be special.
Mental Health and depencdence is also a recuring focus on the album. In tracks like “Blind” and “Seek and Destroy,” she talks about the acceptance of actions and acceptance of herself. In lyrics like “All the hate I know is used to fuel my soul,” she helps normalize feelings of insecurities and vulnerability. In the rock balled “F2F” she expresses being okay with being used to try to distract herself from accepting things are over and people leaving, allowing listeners to have a space and comunity to express their feelings.
If there is anything wrong with the album, it would be the choice of the title track. SOS, as a song itself, is a highlight, sampling Gabriel Hardeman Delegation’s “Until I Found the Lord (My Should Couldn’t Rest),” which provides an unblemished beat to sing on. The production “disses the weight of gospel,” according to Vulture magazine; it gives the song a unique finish. However, other than its production, the song doesn’t have many other distinct qualities that set it out from the rest of the album. The song falls more like an interlude than a title track, especially because it fades into Kill Bill, a song that sets itself out from the rest of the album with its bold lyrics.
Ultimately, SZA steps out of her comfort zone and creates truly beautiful songs, relatable, fun to listen to, easy to cry to, and the album is a perfect harmony of complex emotions and ideas.
In SOS, SZA is not afraid to dabble in taboo topics, such as violence and drugs, which are usually frowned upon when women write about such things. SZA fights the double standard put on women with real lyrics and songs which allow people to connect with her and the album. You can see this in “Kill Bill” when she sings: “I might kill my ex, not the best idea. His new girlfriend’s next, how’d I get here?” and “I still love him, though. Rather be in jail than alone.” Who can’t relate to that?
Throughout the album she travels to new genres that we’ve never seen her do before, as she dabbles in rap, rock, indie pop, and alternative, as well as her usual sound. It creates a refreshing sound to the album. “Smoking on my Ex Pack”, a fast-beating song screaming confidence and self worth, is just four tracks away from “Special”, a slow and delicate song about insecurities, as SZA wants to be “That girl from the Gucci store” saying that she wishes she wants to be special.
Mental Health and depencdence is also a recuring focus on the album. In tracks like “Blind” and “Seek and Destroy,” she talks about the acceptance of actions and acceptance of herself. In lyrics like “All the hate I know is used to fuel my soul,” she helps normalize feelings of insecurities and vulnerability. In the rock balled “F2F” she expresses being okay with being used to try to distract herself from accepting things are over and people leaving, allowing listeners to have a space and comunity to express their feelings.
If there is anything wrong with the album, it would be the choice of the title track. SOS, as a song itself, is a highlight, sampling Gabriel Hardeman Delegation’s “Until I Found the Lord (My Should Couldn’t Rest),” which provides an unblemished beat to sing on. The production “disses the weight of gospel,” according to Vulture magazine; it gives the song a unique finish. However, other than its production, the song doesn’t have many other distinct qualities that set it out from the rest of the album. The song falls more like an interlude than a title track, especially because it fades into Kill Bill, a song that sets itself out from the rest of the album with its bold lyrics.
Ultimately, SZA steps out of her comfort zone and creates truly beautiful songs, relatable, fun to listen to, easy to cry to, and the album is a perfect harmony of complex emotions and ideas.
