SZA Returns with New Album ‘SOS’: Stream It Now
SZA ends her five-year hiatus with the release of her second studio album SOS, which was released Friday (Dec. 9) via Top Dawg Entertainment/RCA Records.
SOS follows CTRL, her classic debut album that debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and never left, having spent 286 consecutive weeks on the chart (through the Dec. 10 edition).
In her Billboard cover story from November, she opened up about the difficulty of embarking on another personally and professionally demanding album cycle. “I could literally burst into tears and run through this wall at any moment. I am effectively falling apart,” she said at the time. “But it’s not like, the album pressure… It’s just, life is f–king hard. To be expected to do anything at a high level while life is life-ing is f–king crazy. This isn’t meant for a person; it’s meant for a machine.”
The 23-track project includes collaborations with Phoebe Bridgers (“Ghost in the Machine”), Travis Scott (“Open Arms”), Don Toliver (“Used”) and Ol’ Dirty Bastard (“Forgiveless”). Previously released singles “Good Days,” “I Hate U” and “Shirt” are also included in the album, which have all reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the full-length version of the oft-teased snippet “Blind,” which she performed on Saturday Night Live last weekend.
For the cover story, Billboard had an earlier listen to select tracks of the album and described SOS as her “most daring body of work yet…. Instrumentally, S.O.S is the most captivating music she has ever made, her beloved lo-fi beats sharing space with surf rock within the same track, a grunge record and an acoustic guitar-driven ballad coexisting without either sounding out of place. And while SZA says she was a “more carefree writer” during her Ctrl sessions, she has sharpened her writing since. S.O.S is an album that certainly justifies a five-year wait.”
Stream SOS here.
Heran Mamo
Billboard
