The SOS Reflections: A Review of SZA’s Long Awaited Sophomore Album
SZA dropped her long-awaited sophomore album, SOS, on December 9, 2022. After years of delays, SOS found critical acclaim and has sat snuggly at the top of the Billboard 200. SOS is an album full of new reflections from SZA while still drawing on old themes from her debut album, CTRL. Though not a sister album to CTRL, SOS is a messy, honest, and beautiful recollection of the journey we take within ourselves when working through mishaps with toxic lovers and unrequited crushes. It is the evolution of the “normal girl.”
SZA is truthful. She has her high and low points. One second she hates how she’s being treated, gets jealous, moves on, sees herself above the hurt, and wonders what it would be like to return to the relationship. There isn’t a throughline to SOS because it’s a painting of the irrationality of trying to love someone that’s non-committal or emotionally unavailable. Part of why SOS has various sounds to it is to display the constantly changing emotions that SZA is experiencing.
SOS album cover
SOS starts with SZA reflecting on where she is after her relationship. The album then chronicles different points of the relationship and ends with SZA moving on from her relationship. There is an upbeat start to SOS, with the first half having more dancy beats and the second half being more reflective and melancholic. The arc of the album starts with an angry and destructive SZA post-relationship. She details how her ex hurt her, but she still loves them and hopes they can have some type of relationship. SZA is willing to overlook the faults of her ex-partner because a relationship is enough, despite it being loveless. The album ends with SZA reminiscing on her relationship, which leads her to understand that moving on and seeking better experiences is the best option.
The overarching theme of SOS is how love changes us into the better versions and the worst parts of ourselves. While loving is an act and not an emotion, SOS takes us through the unraveling of emotions that come with self-love and romantic love. SZA tries to balance her self-worth by practicing selflessness in a relationship. SZA doesn’t give us an answer to the situations she performs on SOS. She simply shows us the experience and allows us to figure out how SOS will play out in our lives.
Physically and Mentally Changing Ourselves for a Relationship
“Special” outlines the transition of the “normal girl” who is acceptable into the “ordinary girl” who is not good enough. SZA physically and mentally changes herself to fit the expectations of her lover. She molds into what they want and later hates herself for it. She realizes that in the moments of her relationship, changing herself felt right because it’s what she needed to be loved. But, as the beauty standards and her ex’s standards change, SZA finds herself no longer attractive to her partner. If anything, who she used to be is now acceptable. Beauty standards play a role in SZA’s relationship. She finds that being herself isn’t enough. This questions whether being yourself is worth it if the standard of “you” are fleeting.
Settling for Proximity Over Love
SOS is an album that shows how the desire to be loved leaves us settling for proximity. “Notice Me” is the best example of SZA turning love into a matter of proximity rather than being loved. She begins to settle for whatever pieces of her lover she can receive. “I don’t need to be your girl / Cool with just being your person / Already tried being your person” are the lyrics that signal how SZA has given up on a love that can be hers. She accepts sharing her partner as long as she gets them sometimes (The Weekend?). The idea that if a relationship can’t work out, maybe a situationship can, is what drives SZA in “Notice Me.” At this point, she’s not looking to be loved, only the idea of a person.
The Detriments of a One-Sided Love
Investing in a one-sided love is exhausting, and that’s how SZA sounds. She’s exhausted, but is holding onto love. Putting all of yourself into someone who’s not even looking at you is soul-crushing. SZA’s willing to look over how drained she is because a sliver of hope keeps her going. Is it worth loving someone who is unwilling to love you the second you love them? For SZA, it is. In “Love Language,” she begs for a connection with her partner. She’s okay with being an afterthought in her relationship, even if she is craving more. “Show me how to connect to you / Help me understand / How you speak your love language” is her way of building a bridge because her partner won’t even meet her halfway. She’s not asking for a relationship in which people learn each other’s love languages to better understand. SZA has become the emotional support system in the relationship, even if it crushes her.
Self-Love Evades Us in Relationships
A question that SOS asks is if self-love can evade us in relationships. The times that SZA embraces self-love are in the songs when she has no partner. “SOS,” “Smoking on my Ex Pack,” and “Conceited” are the songs in which SZA is feeling herself. She steps into what she loves about herself, and she’s learning what it means to be loved outside of a relationship. We learn how to love ourselves after a relationship. Investment in self-love creates a renewed confidence in ourselves. But, with the self-love anthems coinciding with the end of a relationship, it shows how we forfeit self-love in relationships. In “Blind,” SZA sings, “All the love I seek / living inside of me / I can’t see, I’m blind.” Loving herself is the answer to her problems, but she overlooks it purposefully to chase the person that she wants. In “Far,” SZA has lost sight of herself because her relationship is how she defines herself. Without a relationship, she feels empty and lost trying to discover herself.
SOS has been labeled as a “low-vibrational” or “self-hating” album. This may just be a surface-level expectation about who we should be in relationships or how we should view our emotions toward lovers. SOS isn’t that fairytale or hopeless romantic type of love. It’s honest desperation that can sometimes lead us to toxicity. SZA chooses to write about the side of love that we don’t seek, but experience and settle for. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth of what love can look like in the real world.