SZA sits on the edge of a boat in her new album cover.
Courtesy | Wikimedia Commons

Debuting at 67.9 million streams on Spotify, SZA’s highly anticipated, third album, “SOS,” has cemented her name in pop-culture. While the album shattered records, spending six consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, “SOS” has also served as a slight disappointment. 

This newest album arrived five years after “Ctrl”— a cohesive group of 14 songs with complex, story-telling lyrics. The overarching theme of her sophomore album speaks to the growing pains experienced in a woman’s early twenties, particularly with relationships. She sings of insecurity, fear of aging, and unrequited love. Each song fits together with the next. Some songs off of “Ctrl” reached radio-level fame and the album as a whole garnered a die-hard following. 

SZA first hinted to the public that the new album would be less lyrically complex by releasing a series of simple, catchy singles. “I Hate U,” originally released in 2021, teased the theme of “SOS” as a whole: the analysis of past relationships. Why did they fail? How does she feel about her exes now? The fullness of SZA’s answer to these questions came with the full album, charged with feminine anger. As much as she dislikes the men who have wronged her, she misses the companionship they provided. 

At 23 tracks long, she had time to sing about other complexities with relationships or youth or womanhood. But, across the whole album, she makes and re-makes the same point of simultaneously regretting and missing her ex-boyfriends. To the chagrin of those who still have “Ctrl” on their casual listening rotation, SZA does not explore anything new in “SOS.”

However, “SOS” redeems its subpar content with a diverse listening experience. According to the statistics, “SOS” beats “Ctrl,” and perhaps for good reason. SZA makes up for the relative simplicity of the lyrics by taking cautious steps outside of the RnB genre. With songs like “F2F,” she jars her listeners with an acoustic guitar strumming behind her atypical, high-pitched, sing-songy voice. SZA also pays a distinct ode to her predecessors—Mary J. Blige and Lauryn Hill—with the title track and “Smoking on my Ex Pack.” By including strict rap and quasi-pop music on a largely RnB album, she creates a diverse listening experience. 

If she combines the lyricism of her sophomore album and experimental quality of her third, SZA’s future projects will continue to top the charts.