SZA Is a Bug-Eyed Beauty on ‘Lana’ Deluxe Album Cover
On Wednesday (Dec. 18), SZA unveiled the album artwork for Lana, the long-awaited deluxe edition of her blockbuster album SOS.
On the cover, the superstar metamorphosed into a shimmering bug-eyed creature with a golden camouflage jacket and cargo pants in her natural outdoor habitat.
SZA officially announced Monday that Lana would arrive Friday via Top Dawg Entertainment and RCA Records. Ben Stiller starred in a teaser video that she posted on Instagram, which features an unreleased track titled “Drive.”
She first revealed the Lana title during a concert at New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard in September 2023, saying the deluxe version of SOS “is like a whole ‘nother album, and it’s called Lana. It’s seven to 10 songs, and it’ll be out this fall.” In a British Vogue interview last month, she described Lana and the SOS deluxe as two entirely different albums. “I think I am making music from a more beautiful place. From a more possible place versus a more angsty place,” she told the publication. “I’m not identifying with my brokenness. It’s not my identity. It’s sh– that happened to me. Yeah, I experienced cruelty. I have to put it down at some point. Piece by piece, my music is shifting because of that, the lighter I get.” But earlier this month, she confirmed Lana is the title of the SOS deluxe album and teased the track list.
The deluxe set comes more than two years after SZA dropped SOS. The 23-song LP included five Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit singles: the No. 1 “Kill Bill,” plus “Snooze,” “I Hate U,” “Good Days” and “Nobody Gets You.” It spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — the most of any R&B/hip-hop album by a woman since Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut spent 11 weeks at the top in 1991. Instead of its impact being limited to the final weeks of 2022, SOS became one of this and last year’s biggest releases. SOS was nominated for album of the year and best progressive R&B album at the 2024 Grammy Awards, when SZA was the most-nominated artist with nine total nods.
See the Lana album artwork below.
Heran Mamo
Billboard
