Bella Flowers
Loomis Chaffee '24
Amazon.
With her newest album SOS, SZA gifts listeners with yet another masterpiece. Now her second full album, SOS stretches across important topics, exploring shifting ideas of love, relationships, and self worth from a distinctly female perspective.
The album begins with the title track, “SOS,” which samples Masego’s classic track “Navajo” (also sampled by Drake in Certified Lover Boy’s opening track, “Champagne Poetry”). In her opening track, SZA sets the stage of what’s to come. She claims her place with lyrics like “Damn right I’m the one,” but also touches on the lasting grief of a dwindling relationship, opening with “Give me a second, give me a minute,” closing with “And I cried, and cried.”
SZA moves gracefully into a significantly darker song, “Kill Bill,” proclaiming her lasting devotion to her ex in an alluring, catchy-yet-gloomy melody. “Kill Bill”’s darker tune and lyrics allow SZA to demonstrate the impressive range she has vocally but also thematically. “Kill Bill '' has become one of the more popular songs on the album, along with “Good Days” and “Shirt”, both of which she had released earlier (or at least snippets) and had already garnered much success with.
Throughout her album, SZA uses several clever references to film: you may have recognized “Kill Bill” as the title of Quentin Tarantino’s classic action series, and the lyrics reflect the plot: a vengeful assassin on a quest to kill her jealous ex after he tried to murder her on her wedding day. “Gone Girl” and “Ghost in the Machine” are additional titles of thriller or horror films, all of which center around a woman’s response to a murderous lover, stalker, or careless husband. Such references seem to reflect a consistent theme in SOS of SZA’s personal struggles with heartbreak.
SOS is a varied mix of upbeat and slow songs, with a melange of themes regarding relationships. Some of her songs are slower, pensive, and filled with longing and pain. Songs like “Nobody Gets Me” paint an image of desire in a ballad-like way, yet are still easy to sing along with. On the other hand, songs like “Conceited” are a much more empowering claim to herself and her worth, repeating that “I’m betting on me” and encouraging a sense of self in listeners. Most songs will fall in a middle point of the two, like “Gone Girl,” which takes on a melodic tune while attempting to navigate what it means to have a sense of independence while in a relationship.
Impressive collaborations dot the album, ranging from Phoebe Bridgers on “Ghost in the Machine” to “Open Arms” with Travis Scott. Both songs allow SZA to display her impressive vocal range, highlighting her abilities in spitting rap lyrics as well as melodically serenading listeners.
With the album being 23 tracks long, and ending up just over an hour, some listeners may not choose to listen to the whole thing. If you only had a few tracks to listen to, my personal recommendations would be: “Used” featuring Don Toliver, “F2F”, and “Special.” Each of these are quite different, “F2F” perhaps being the album’s most explosive and upbeat song, “Special” a heartfelt ballad, and “Used” sitting somewhere in between. Each piece gives a quick sample of SZA’s work with this album.
SOS has been incredibly successful so far, spreading rapidly through social media moments after its release, and debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Charts. SZA clearly deserves this recognition, and it will be exciting to see how her sophomore album fares in the upcoming awards season.
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