Album of the Year 2017 #01: SZA - CTRL. - HipHop |
- Album of the Year 2017 #01: SZA - CTRL.
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| Album of the Year 2017 #01: SZA - CTRL. Posted: 01 Dec 2017 08:01 AM PST Listen: Background: SZA (Self Savior, Zig Zag Zig, Allah in the Supreme Alphabet), born Solána Rowe, is the woman I'm going to talk about today. Her, and her debut album, CTRL, my second album of the year behind Lorde's Melodrama. At barely 26 years old, her life has taken a lot of turns: from being a gymnast to working with Beyoncé and Rihanna to being a model for Ivy Park to being a neo-soul superstar. Born in St. Louis, from a black-muslim family, she only could listen to one genre of music in her house: jazz, with the artists her father played, like Miles Davis, Billie Holiday or Louis Armstrong. This would mark the jazzy production on CTRL. Other of her influences would be given by one of her friends, in a Bar Mitzvah: she got gifted a CD mixtape with Red Hot Chili Peppers, LFO and Macy Gray, what she called emo sad white rich kid shit. She loved it. But that isn't everything; one day her old brother gave her an iPod. On it, she found artists that completely broke with the styles of music she was accustomed to: Wu-Tang Clan, Björk, Common, Mos Def, Nas and Jay-Z. Her brother (Manhattan) also introduced her to music: when she was 19, he asked her to do backing vocals for one of his songs, Where Do We Go?. Fast forward a year: SZA self-releases her debut mixtape See.SZA.Run, which included the single Time Travel Undone. Later in 2013, she signs to TDE and releases an EP, S. Then in 2014 she released another EP, Z, including the songs Child's Play featuring Chance the Rapper and Babylon featuring Kendrick Lamar. Some writing credits with Beyoncé and Nicki, some others with Travis Scott and ScHoolboy Q, a feature with Jay Rock, and we get to the first big jump: Rihanna's Consideration. Consideration is the intro track to the 2016 surprise-released Rihanna album, Anti. Well we don't know if it was a surprise, but Tidal fucked up. SZA had previously spoken about Rihanna in a series of tweets calling her and Ciara out, but they became friends after. Consideration could be considered SZA's first step into mainstream, especially thanks to that BRITs performance. To the track, SZA does the post-choruses and the outro. They are beautifully written, and SZA's voice does a beautiful contrast with Rihanna's.
It's a pessimistic line, evoking a moment of sadness. The picture of people looking at the window is constant in movies and shows, waiting for something to come or happen. But when SZA looks at the window, she can't see nothing positive. Those two lines could condense SZA's lyrical skills. Review:
"Supermodel", the first track in SZA's debut album CTRL, starts with these lines. They're not spoken by her, but by her mother. SZA explained what control is for her in a Genius interview: "I have no control, there is no such thing as control. I'm chasing control. I'm craving control. I'm losing control. It's a culmination of all these things, of this word, of this concept, that's just run my life for so long, that's just been very obsessive. [...] Like, 'No, don't put out an album until you're a better writer.' And the truth is, sometimes you just have to let go." We chase control in our lives. For many, our life goal is being with someone we love, in a pretty house, with a job we enjoy. But sometimes things don't work out like that. Supermodel talks about SZA having a boyfriend, who heads to Vegas on Valentine's Day. She later receives a call from one of his friends: they all had a orgy that day. This line feels like a bomb in a first listen:
SZA spits the lines over the looped chords of an electric guitar, the only beat of the song until the second minute, where some drums kick in. If he can cheat on her, she cheats on him. In an interview with The Breakfast Club, she revealed that after getting that call she started to go after one of his boyfriend's friends, who she had a crush on. She uses the second and first person to end the verse:
This showcases the surprise of his boyfriend, the second person, to the indifference of her. She will do it again, just to hurt him more if it's necessary. But at the same time, she isn't comfortable with her new… Boyfriend? FWB? At all, SZA isn't comfortable with a man, but she can't be alone:
That's a feeling many have. Even if it hurts, you need to be with someone. At the end, one needs to love itself, and move on. But instead, SZA breaks up with her boyfriend to move on with his friend:
Still, she has insecurities she can't let go. She looks for attention, but instead of love, only gets sex back. But it's not bad for her, that still makes her feel good. And the chorus repeats again, going back to the wish I was comfortable just with myself lines, but this time it doesn't apply to her old boyfriend, but to her new temporary lover. She went from a toxic relationship to another one. Sometimes, that person you love doesn't love you as much, and that house you wanted for your future family won't be bought. At the end, Supermodel becomes an hymn about letting go. About not being dependant of others. About getting over your insecurities. About being comfortable with yourself. Then, "Love Galore" does a flash-forward. The second single of CTRL becomes a flash-forward from Supermodel. It starts with an intro sung by Travis Scott, that goes by I need, I need several times, to which SZA's chorus replies love, love. While he doesn't know what he wants (sex, love, a family), SZA is sure about her ideas: as long as they have love, they'll be fine. But, Love Galore has a special line that hits in the pre-chorus:
It's a relatable sentiment. How many times has someone avoided talking with you after they started talking? In an era of digital communication where you can get everything through Twitter and talk with anybody, ignoring someone is easier than ever. Face to face, you can't just leave running and have an excuse. Ask a girl, she'll tell you about how she has fifteen guys texting her but none has asked her on a date. In any other context this line would feel pretty conservative, but on SZA's words it works out. Then, the second line hits:
Now ask the same girl as before, and she'll tell you about how half of those guys had a girlfriend and just wanted her to be either a side chick or a plan B. The whole pre-chorus is an oxymoron to the first verse, which talked about a temporary love (just like Supermodel), a summer fling, but now talks about taking any opportunity to be with her lover:
The last two lines mark a huge change in the song: they might be playing, but now it's her time to play with him. She wants him, but at the same time she is the one who will decide over him. The one who will leaver her on read. But then you have the gorgeous outro:
Go back to the same girl you talked with before. Has she been ghosted? Ever? Probably. Maybe the guy got a cold, maybe he was at a party, maybe he just forgot. SZA explains it once again to Genius: The outro is the telltale story of you be in the area. You said you wanted to do all these things. Like, you wanted to spend time and, you know, talked a good one. Via whatever. Via text, via on the phone, and then you go ghost. That's happened to so many girls. [...] But, I have been in a place where I felt like I liked somebody and I couldn't say what I wanted to say. So you just end up being quiet. Like, the whole time, in this place where the other person is. It could be a city, it could be a proverbial city. It could be a room. It could be a party. Love Galore is as a whole an anthem to digital love, in the good and the bad side. It's a song that empowers to dump the guys who just want side chicks, to get out of toxic relationship, to recognize what's wrong with you and your lover.
"Prom", the fifth track, is a come back to the sound of her old mixtapes, doing disco-pop that many other popstars could have done. It's teen angst, but late teen angst: prom season is coming of age, growing apart, and looking forward to the future. All of this happens while SZA sings about not maturing as fast as her boyfriend:
While he is caring with her, she just can't give back. She just isn't ready for a relationship. One of my favourite lines on the song is at the end of the second verse:
Which is a reference to The Wizard of Oz. SZA likes to reference movies in her songs, like Forrest Gump in "Doves In The Wind" or Misery in the "Love Galore" video. Those evil witches are those mean girls and high-school, and the houses are her possible futures: what career to choose, who to settle down with… and just as with The Wizard of Oz, what matters in high-school is the journey, not the ending; the friends and experiences you make along the way, not going to university. Prom feels like a song stuck in a 90's movie: after the couple leaves town in their convertible, the song starts to play as the camera does an aerial shot of the car far away, driving through the country roads, and then the credits kick in. Maybe it could be the ending of the album, but instead it rolls out to "The Weekend". And then there is "The Weekend".
"The Weekend" starts as every other SZA song, or that's what many people say: she is a side-chick in a relationship with a man who already has a girlfriend. These lines are from her perspective, facing his partner. The first verse follows:
She desperately looks for his attention, trying to love him enough to make him dump his girlfriend and be with her. The irony of the last line is how even if he broke up with the other woman, and SZA became his girlfriend, the man would keep on cheating her with another woman. It will hurt less to be with him, sure, but he still won't be only hers.
The lines are self-explanatory. She went from not caring about the other woman to worry about his relationship with her. But still, she doesn't care as long as she gets sex. Then you get one of the most beautiful chorus this year:
Where she compares herself as a weekend with him, while his girlfriend is with him during the weekdays. This line also could have a deeper meaning: while he doesn't enjoy his work (the weekdays, the other woman) and feels stressed about it, the weekend (her) are moments of relax. He enjoys more the moments he spends with SZA rather than with her girlfriend. As she says in "Love Galore" (got me looking forward to weekends), he looks forward to the weekend to be liberated.
In the second SZA starts to argue about the arrangement her and the girlfriend did: while one gets 5 days, the other only gets 2.
Now SZA breaks her arrangement, and decides that she wants the man all for her. One of the most interesting parts is how the last line also references the last line of the first verse: instead of give me what I want now it's I know what you want, showing that now she wants to take control of the relationship. Another chorus goes, and then an outro. What a good song, right? The thing is, to see what makes it great you need to switch the view on the song. "The Weekend" isn't sung from one perspective; it's sung from two. Both the side-chick and the girlfriend. And not just one side-chick, but two. And if you go back to the Breakfast Club interview I put around Supermodel, you'll see she mentions how she talks from both perspectives: A lot of these songs have dual meanings. I'm speaking from the girlfriend and from the other perspective. Like I've been the girlfriend that didn't know and I've been the girl that didn't know you had a girlfriend. So at the end of the day, SZA isn't the side-chick. She is the girlfriend, but sings from both perspectives. In some verses you can't tell who is singing, like in the one that references home. It's overall a very interesting song, where unless you get some context you'll just say that it's just good, where narratives matters.
"20 Something", starts over some subtle guitar chords. It doesn't sound like something special, but it is because it's the first time in the whole album since Supermodel a guitar really stand out. It makes it sound like a bonfire song, and the harmonies in the chorus reinforce that feeling. It's a campfire song, and just like "Prom", it's a song about being stuck but wanting to grow up. While "Prom" situated SZA at the end of high-school, "20 Something" is somewhere in her twenties, maybe finishing college, maybe right now. And while "Prom" was teenage angst, "20 Something" has a feeling of... matureness. SZA sings a beautiful chorus that sums it up:
Who hasn't been told 'good luck with that' at any stage of his life? High-school, college, and then those twenty-somethings. A moment where you have to act mature, but you aren't mature enough for some things. Mature enough to party all night and be responsible of your own acts, but not enough to settle down and buy a house. Some want to be stuck in the former, some look forward to the latter. But as she says, *'God Bless these 20 Somethings'. It's a stage of life that as any other you have to enjoy and live as you want. Don't look at the future as something perfect, and try to do the best in the time you have. You need to make your way out of the twenties, stand out, but at the same time it's necessary to spend those years having fun and being happy. And that's hard. Finally, the outro to CTRL is a phone call with SZA's mother, once again:
And this is what connects "Supermodel" to "20 Something", what connects CTRL. A phone call from which we only know the start and the end. Those are two points of a story, the story of SZA's mother, and you can connect them however you want. That's what shines in CTRL, the skill of making songs that people can relate to. Maybe it's not the same story they have lived, maybe it's not their story at all, but it sure is one you can feel that has happened, to SZA and to many other people. CTRL isn't a perfect album, neither it has a perfect message. It isn't free of contradictions (first I need you, but now I don't need nobody) but CTRL doesn't pretend to be an album of self-help since the lyrics can't be more full of guilt, low self-esteem and self-embarrassment. As the title suggests, the control SZA assumes sometimes works and other times, just like a keyboard key, doesn't. This is SZA's reality, the one of a 'twenty-something' woman, and also many other girls', who will come to this album not to find answers to their questions but to comfort themselves in the experience a person like them had to suffer and later found the strength to tell. other favourite lyrics, chosen by other users:
Discussion points:
SZA has been called everything in the five years that separate the release of her first mixtape to today. The saviour of female R&B, the female Frank Ocean, the next big popstar, the new Beyoncé. Comparisons are never good, but maybe this time they are. If I wrote this review like this, focusing more on the lyrics than the production (when I prefer production most of the time), it's because SZA has those lyrical skills that make her stand out. She is a storyteller, and maybe some people compare her with Frank Ocean for that. CTRL is an album full of stories, from falling out of love to parties to growing up, and she tells them all fantastically. And maybe she is the next big popstar. In a year with few to no female #1s (Taylor, Cardi and Halsey as a feature), pop needs a new star. One with attitude, that is able to make hits and at the same time amazing albums. For me, it's torn between Ariana Grande, Camila Cabello or Dua Lipa, but SZA is a big contender. She's had a top 30 single, and her first album debuted at #3 (behind Kendrick Lamar and Katy Perry tho) with 60k copies, half of them pure sales. She has gone on a big Europe tour with Bryson Tiller, got a cover on Billboard and has been working with Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) and Mark Ronson in an album. She has a top 10 hit with Maroon 5. And on top of all, she got 5 nominations for the Grammys this year. Her becoming a star is all a possibility, of course, but SZA sure has a bright future ahead. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Dec 2017 11:43 AM PST |
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