SOS (SZA Album)

''SOS'' is the second studio album by American singer SZA. It was released through Top Dawg Entertainment and RCA Records on December 9, 2022. The album features guest appearances from Don Toliver, Phoebe Bridgers, Travis Scott, and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard. SZA worked with a variety of record producers and songwriters such as Babyface, Jeff Bhasker, Benny Blanco, Rodney Jerkins, DJ Dahi, Gabriel Hardeman, Ant Clemons, Lizzo and Björk. It was supported by four singles: "Good Days", " I Hate U", " Shirt", and "Nobody Gets Me". It serves as the follow-up to SZA's previous album, ''Ctrl'' (2017).

Upon its release, ''SOS'' received widespread critical acclaim for its eclectic sound and SZA's vocal delivery, with several media publications ranking it as one of the best albums of 2022. The album debuted at number one on the ''Billboard'' 200 with 318,000 units, breaking the record for the largest streaming week for an R&B album, and marking SZA's first number-one album in the United States.

Background and recording

SZA released her debut studio album, ''Ctrl'', in 2017. Primarily an R&B album that deals with themes like heartbreak, ''Ctrl'' was widely acclaimed by critics for its vocal performances, as well as the relatability, emotional impact, and candid nature of its songwriting. The album solidified her status as one of the most well-known R&B artists of her time.

In January 2020, SZA confirmed plans to start creating her next album. In an interview with ''Rolling Stone'', SZA mentioned that "music is coming out for sure", but stating that it may not just yet result in an album. She also said that the rumor that she was planning to release a trilogy of albums and then retire from music "is nonsense". In the interview, SZA also revealed that she had spent time in the studio with American record producer Timbaland, remembering that "he played fucking Brazilian jazz-type beats, and I popped off to that". She has also collaborated with Australian singer-songwriter Sia, who she reportedly has co-written three songs with. According to ''Vulture'', SZA has earlier expressed intentions of collaborating with Justin Timberlake, Post Malone, Jack Antonoff and Brockhampton on her future songs. From April to May 2022, SZA told media outlets that she had recently finished the album in Hawaii, describing it as her most relatable or "unisex" body of work she had made to date. During the Met Gala and an interview with ''Complex'', SZA claimed that the album was ready for release during summertime in the United States ("this summer, it will be a SZA summer"), although the caveat was that there was no urgent deadline for the release. SZA described its composition during the interview: "I have no idea what it sounds like to anybody else. I really don't know. It's so bizarre. It's weird that I can't put my finger on it. It's a little bit of everything." She added that some parts of the song had an "aggressive" sound whereas others were soft or balladic.

The initial release date never occurred and she blamed the delay on her label RCA Records; the album would be her last to be released through RCA. In October, she said that she had written around 100 songs for the album and added that the album could be released "any day now". During a ''Billboard'' cover story published in November, SZA revealed the title of her second studio album was ''SOS'', scheduled for release sometime next month. She expressed her frustration with complying with music industry standards on promoting music, saying she had been stressed with meeting her deadlines. On December 3, 2022, she appeared on ''Saturday Night Live'' and announced it would be released on December 9. Two days later, she posted the track list on Twitter.

Composition

''S.O.S'' is primarily an R&B album with influences from hip hop and pop. The album samples sound references from soul, gospel, jazz and melodic rap. The sound of the album was described as "a varied palette", combining " surf rock" and "grunge" elements, alongside "her beloved lo-fi beats".

Commercial performance

''SOS'' debuted at number one on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart, with 318,000 equivalent album units sold. The album earned 404.58 million on-demand official streams in its first week, breaking record for the biggest streaming week ever for an R&B album, and becoming the second-largest streaming week for an album by a female artist. Within days the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Elsewhere, ''SOS'' entered within the top 5 of 10 countries: it debuted atop charts in Canada, Netherlands, and New Zealand; at number 2 in Australia, the UK, and Ireland; at number 3 in Norway and Denmark; and number 4 in Sweden and Switzerland.

Artwork

On November 30, 2022, SZA posted the album cover on Instagram. She can be seen wearing a St. Louis Blues hockey jersey on the album cover. The cover is a reference to a 1997 photo of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a similar pose aboard a yacht during a trip in Portofino, Italy, surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea.

SZA reported on the decision to associate the cover and album with Princess Diana's photo:

- Originally I was supposed to be on top of, like, a shipping barge," SZA said. "But in the references that I pulled for that, I pulled the Diana reference because I just loved how isolated she felt and that was what I wanted to convey the most. And then at the last minute, we, like, didn’t get clearance to get the shipping barges that we wanted and we were like, ‘We’re gonna build the diving board instead. We’re still gonna try it.’ We didn’t nix the boat altogether and we tried it and it turned out cool and I wasn’t sure it was going to be really cool until, like, right now. -

Promotion

SZA sporadically released music over a two-plus year period as she continued to perfect her album and push back on release dates. Releasing music videos for these singles, the second half of the video teasers for her next single would play at the end. At the end of a teaser video titled "PSA" released on her 33rd birthday, a message written in Morse code can be seen, which after being translated spells out "S.O.S.". In an interview with ''Billboard'' released on November 16, 2022, SZA confirmed the theories about the album title and release date in December 2022. She further admitted to feeling "stressed" about meeting the release deadline.

SZA promoted the album on the December 3, 2022, episode of NBC's ''Saturday Night Live'' as a musical guest. She performed live the single "Shirt" and the at-the-time unreleased track "Blind", which she previously teased. On December 5, she posted a snippet of a song titled "Nobody Gets Me". A few hours later, she posted the tracklist of the album on her Twitter.

Tour

On December 13, 2022, SZA announced the SOS Tour, a 19-date North American concert tour and her first arena tour, in support of the album, beginning February 21, 2023 at Value City Arena in Columbus, and concluding March 23 at Kia Forum in Inglewood. Omar Apollo was announced as the opening act.

Shows

Critical reception

''SOS'' has received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the album received a score of 90 out of 100, based on 20 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd of ''Pitchfork'' named the album "Best New Music", stressing how it "solidifies her position as a generational talent, an artist who translates her innermost feelings into indelible moments". Alexis Petridis of ''The Guardian'' wrote that the results of the album "are hugely eclectic", finding it "simultaneously impressive and a little exhausting". Petridis found that the songs "shine harder individually than taken in toto, where the sheer profusion causes them to merge into one, blended by a mood of stoned melancholy", with a final product of a "unwieldy" album, where SZA sounds as "a fabulous vocalist, powerful but unshowy, capable of shifting seamlessly into melodic rap".

''NME'''s writer Rhian Daly reported that "under SZA’s command it feels cohesive, organic and like every skip into a new genre is completely justified for each track", pointing out that ''SOS'' is "a phenomenal record that barely puts a foot wrong and raises the bar even higher than she set it before". Cady Siregar by ''Consequence'' defined the album "an assured, ambitious, expansive, and genre-defying journey into the very depths of heartbreak and the many shades it comes in". The journalist emphasized that in ''Ctrl'' there is no predefined musical genre, because "the theme lies in her vocal prowess, the daringness of her vision, and her lyrical frankness".

Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Andy Kellman compared it favourably to SZA's previous album; "Hour-plus length and stylistic variety likewise signal that SOS could be the overreaching kind of highly anticipated follow-up. Still, it's an advancement from ''Ctrl'' in every respect apart from cohesion." Writing for ''Rolling Stone'', Will Dukes also commented on the album's runtime; "SOS is very long – 23 tracks, well over an hour. It suggests someone continually adding to and augmenting a project, or perhaps throwing everything they’ve got at it, fuelled by the feeling that they might not do this again. The results are hugely eclectic."

Accolades

By the time ''SOS'' was released, many publications had already released their respective year-end best-of album lists. Nonetheless, some publications who released later lists included ''SOS'', such as ''BrooklynVegan'', whose writer Andrew Sacher wrote:

Track listing

Notes
* signifies an additional producer.
* signifies a miscellaneous producer.
* signifies a vocal producer.
* "Ghost in the Machine" and "Far" feature additional vocals by Sadhguru.

Sample credits
* "SOS" contains an interpolation of "Listen", performed by Beyoncé, and written by Beyoncé Knowles, Scott Cutler, Henry Krieger and Anne Preven; and a sample of "Until I Found the Lord (My Soul Couldn't Rest)", performed by the Gabriel Hardeman Delegation, and written by Gabriel Hardeman.
* "Love Language" contains an interpolation of " I Don't Wanna", and performed by Aaliyah, and written by Johntá Austin, Jazze Pha, Donnie Scantz and Kevin Hicks; and a sample of "Hit Different", performed by SZA featuring Ty Dolla Sign, and written by Solána Rowe, Tyrone Griffin, Jr., Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, and Rob Bisel.
* "Smoking on My Ex Pack" contains a sample of "Open Up Your Eyes", performed by Webster Lewis, and written by Clarence Scarborough.
* "Good Days" contains an interpolation of "In Too Deep", performed by Jacob Collier featuring Kiana Ledé and written by Collier.
* "Forgiveless" contains a sample of "Hidden Place", written and performed by Björk; and "The Stomp", written and performed by Ol' Dirty Bastard.

Personnel

Musicians

* SZA – lead vocals (all tracks), background vocals (tracks 14, 16, 20)
* Carter Lang – bass (2, 17), choir (2, 12), guitar (2, 13), keyboards (3, 6, 12, 13, 17), drums (12, 13), piano (12)
* Rob Bisel – bass (2, 17), choir (2, 12), guitar (2, 13), keyboards (3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 17), vocals (4), acoustic guitar (6); drums, piano (12); background vocals (14, 16, 20)
* ThankGod4Cody – drums (3, 17), keyboards (3), choir (10)
* Scum – keyboards (3)
* Alessandro Buccellati – accordion, keyboards (4)
* Travis Scott – background vocals (4)
* Aire Atlantica – drums (4)
* Will Miller – keyboards (6)
* Yuli – viola (6)
* Granny – vocals (7, 20)
* Alexandria Arowora – choir (10)
* Anthony Johnson – choir (10)
* Charles Harmon – choir (10)
* Chelsea Miller – choir (10)
* Dylan Neustadter – choir (10)
* Erik Brooks – choir (10)
* Imani Carolyn – choir (10)
* Jewchelle Brown – choir (10)
* Joslynn James – choir (10)
* Roman Collins – choir (10)
* Storm Chapman – choir (10)
* Syd Tagle – choir (10)
* Stix – drums (10)
* Matt Cohn – drums (12)
* Sadhguru – vocals (12, 18)
* Lizzo – background vocals (13)
* Sammy Witte – guitar (17)
* Still Woozy – guitar (17)
* Teo Halm – drums, guitar, keyboards (20)
* Jacob Collier – background vocals (22)

Technical

* Dale Becker – mastering (1–20, 22, 23)
* Rob Bisel – mixing (1, 2, 6, 8, 12, 19–21), engineering (all tracks), mastering (21), vocal engineering (3, 17)
* Shawn Everett – mixing (1, 22), mastering (22)
* Jaycen Joshua – mixing (3, 17, 23)
* Derek "206derek" Anderson – mixing, engineering (4, 20)
* Jon Castelli – mixing (4, 7, 11, 15)
* Manny Marroquin – mixing (5, 18)
* Dana Nielsen – mixing (9, 10, 13)
* Serban Ghenea – mixing (14, 16)
* Carson Graham – engineering (1, 5, 6, 8, 17, 18)
* Josh Deguzman – engineering (4, 7, 11, 15)
* Hector Castro – engineering (9, 15, 19, 21)
* Dylan Neustadter – engineering (10, 11, 16)
* Bryce Bordone – engineering (14)
* Derek Keota – engineering (19, 23)
* Micah Petit – engineering (19, 23)
* Will Maclellan – vocal engineering (12)
* Katie Harvey – engineering assistance (1–20, 22, 23)
* Noah McCorkle – engineering assistance (1–20, 22, 23)
* Robert N. Johnson – engineering assistance (2, 4–6, 9, 12–15, 17–21)
* Syd Tagle – engineering assistance (2, 8, 10–12, 15–17)
* Trey Pearce – engineering assistance (2, 9, 17)
* Hayden Duncan – engineering assistance (3, 10, 12, 15, 16)
* DJ Riggins – engineering assistance (3, 17, 23)
* Jacob Richards – engineering assistance (3, 17, 23)
* Mike Seaberg – engineering assistance (3, 17, 23)
* Rachel Blum – engineering assistance (3, 17, 23)
* Ben Sedano – engineering assistance (5, 7, 19)
* Anthony Vilchis – engineering assistance (5, 18)
* Trey Station – engineering assistance (5, 18)
* Zach Pereyra – engineering assistance (5, 18)
* Jon Sher – engineering assistance (5)
* Kaushlesh Purohit – engineering assistance (7)
* Noah Hashimoto – engineering assistance (7, 13)
* Jonathan Lopez – engineering assistance (8, 14)
* Patrick Gardner – engineering assistance (14)
* Austin Christy – engineering assistance (15)
* Jeremy Dilli – engineering assistance (16, 18)
* Shelby Epstine – engineering assistance (20)

Charts

Certifications

Release history

See also

* List of ''Billboard'' 200 number-one albums of 2022
* List of number-one albums of 2022 (Canada)
* List of number-one albums from the 2020s (New Zealand)

References

{{SZA

2022 albums
RCA Records albums
SZA albums