SZA’s 2017 Top Dawg Entertainment release of her debut album, CTRL, shifted the foreground of contemporary R&B and remains in the lexicon of classic albums that withstands the test of time and context. No matter where you are in life, hearing SZA’s late grandmother, Norma, utter the words, “Also you black heffa, yeah you, you stand your ground/ ‘Cause I feel the same way/ If you don’t like me, you don’t have to fool with me,” cleanses the soul.
It is easy to say that music is a portal through time, but it is harder to look back on the kind of friend, lover, or person you were in the world when you were at your most unsure, scared, and afraid. Music can and often becomes our foreground into clarity. It gives us a sound for the unknown and reminds us that we are not alone in that abyss of longing. It is rare that artists in their prime strike at a project that breaks the ether and becomes the lifeline for a generation of young people. Solana Rowe—with the wise voices of her mother and grandma throughout did just that. SZA gave us sonics for falling into the mess of our lives with gratitude that you can only appreciate five years later.
To best honor CTRL as it is, we’ve ranked each track from worst to best. You will not agree with the said list and, respectfully, we get it…just join in the chaos and revisit the mess you were in 2017 like the rest of us.
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“Love Galore” Feat. Travis Scott
Image Credit: Youtube Screenshot The issue with debut albums is that the lead single gets run into the ground. “Love Galore” suffers that same fate. The bouncy and ethereal track feels disconnected from the rest of the album at times. While the track’s highlights include SZA talking her sh*t, sadly, Travis Scott’s verse of nothingness takes all of the fun out of the song. Especially his reference to getting Kylie Jenner pregnant.
The saving graces of “Love Galore” are, as always, SZA and her team’s masterful eye for music video production. The above criticisms also exclude the unreleased verse that SZA performed on Saturday Night Live in 2018, which remains perfect…
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“Prom”
Image Credit: Top Dawg/RCA The storytelling in “Prom” just can’t keep up with its poppy and uptempo production. While many see “Prom” as an easy go-to on CTRL, it feels like an easy skip. Much of SZA‘s best skills are on full display, but the short and vapid sound of the echoes leaves much to be desired for a song that speaks to her earlier pop-disco sound. Yet, as the singer laments not wanting to be left behind, the track seems to be shrouded in a sugary glaze that doesn’t penetrate as deep as it could have.
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“Drew Barrymore”
The drunk truth of a hard night can be painful to sit with. To look at your own longing and be okay with accepting whatever form of affection or attention you can get that night is rough, to say the least. In “Drew Barrymore,” SZA goes into some of her most desperate lyrical frames alongside electric guitar hooks that at times feel monotone.
All of this makes sense for the reality of the sentiment at hand, yet it can read as redundant and uncomfortable to listen to in the context of a song. But that’s the point. Who we are at our most desperate can often sound needy, pleading, and reverberating. God willing, we don’t have to face that side of ourselves too often.
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“The Weekend”
Image Credit: Top Dawg/RCA Another track fated for single fame that, because of its notoriety and odd interpretation by the masses, lost its appeal. With no slight to SZA, the public went out of its way to misunderstand the record. The track remains an easy listen and one of the breakout singles that highlights SZA’s pen as well as her team of producers who’ve kept her sound unique to her alone. We’d also be remiss to not mention “The Weekend” is paired with one of the singer’s best music videos to date, deftly directed by Solange.
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“Doves In The Wind” Feat. Kendrick Lamar
Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot There isn’t a single bad collab between SZA and Kendrick Lamar. “Doves In The Wind” ranks at the top of the list of various songs they’ve made together. The track offers the first pocket of ease on CTRL, with SZA leading the charge, declaring, “Real ni**as do not deserve pu**y.”
It’s an easy song to listen to because it speaks to what both artists are phenomenal at: speaking the truth to you from the cool side of the pillow. Lamar normally dominates songs he’s featured on, but in “Doves In The Wind,” he seems in alignment with his host and appears to make space for SZA to eat up the downbeats of the track.
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“Supermodel”
Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot Solana knows how to write. Her ability to remain self-reflective, painfully aware of relationship dynamics, and tell herself the truth is unbridled in “Supermodel.” She begins her debut album with her mother’s voice and welcomes the listener into the abyss. Over edgy guitar chords and later a grounded bass, SZA runs through her own transgressions at the end of a relationship with a lover who had long forgotten her. Yet, she still longs for him to see her again, sitting with how the weight of desire is a fleeting component of romance that often covers up the ugliness of a relationship that no longer serves anyone involved.
“Leave me lonely for prettier women/ You know I need too much attention for sh*t like that.” The true brilliance of this record is less about the relationship and more so the pain of wanting someone to love you when you struggle to love yourself. “I don’t see myself/ Why I can’t stay alone just by myself?/ Wish I was comfortable just with myself.”
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“Wavy (Interlude)” Feat. James Fauntleroy
Image Credit: Top Dawg/RCA CTRL is at its best on its interludes that move from one place to another without too much fuss. “Wavy” is one of such interludes that pushes the project from boasting and flexing on ain’t s**t ni**as to a deep look at how one can find themselves lost in situationships amid red flags they chose to ignore.
James Fauntleroy’s vocals act as a kind backboard to SZA‘s pen, aiding her bravado as she inches closer to the grittiness of escape that is always waiting for us should we choose to see it.
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“Go Gina”
Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot Referencing Martin, SZA brings us the easy flow of “Go Gina,” which speaks to the ease she’s attempting to manifest in her own life; the weightlessness she’s evoking in hopes of making more room for herself. It’s a quick look into what she seeks throughout the rest of the album, as her hard truth-telling in other songs is what makes these dreams possible.
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“Garden (Say It Like Dat)”
Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot True fear is knowing the love you long for is rooted in a fantasy that was mutually created. In “Garden,” SZA plays with the tenants of a fleeting fling that keeps the ego on edge, as she sings, “Hoping I’ll never find out that you’re anyone else/ ‘Cause I love you just how you are/ And hope you never find out who I really am/ ‘Cause you’ll never love me, you’ll never love me.”
Before Grandma Norma reminds us to stand clear in our convictions, listeners are faced with truths about the versions of ourselves that get us through life no matter what.
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“Anything”
Image Credit: Top Dawg/RCA CTRL could easily be split into various moods just by the interludes alone. “Anything,” which contains a sample from the Donna Summer song “Spring Reprise,” describes the experience of just going with the flow.
This track, held together by the brightness of the Summer sample, keeps kindly unaware of how disassociated SZA seems to be in this fleeting relationship. It’s by far one of the album’s best interludes and remains a marker in the oncoming depression and melancholy of the rest of the album.
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“Pretty Little Birds” Feat. Isaiah Rashad
Image Credit: Top Dawg/RCA Fans of SZA‘s debut EP, Z, felt called back to her origins with this light tune of madness. Working with one of her best TDE collaborators, Isaiah Rashad, SZA approaches “Pretty Little Birds” with production focused on melody and jazz that feels grown up and clear. This renders some of her sharpest writing.
Throughout the track, SZA alludes to how the wake of love can take you to the edges of yourself and how good that can sometimes feel. It’s a painful and truthful reminder of how the lines of self-betrayal and love can blur at an age when belonging is all you want. The saxophone and trumpet echo each lyric and work in tandem with Rashad’s verse, which itself is beautifully in sync with SZA’s. “Pretty Little Birds” is a song that everybody can relate to despite the fact that nobody should ever have to.
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“Normal Girl”
Image Credit: Top Dawg/RCA Opening with bright chords and down-turned percussion, “Normal Girl” meets us where SZA is. Much of CTRL lives next to the longing faced at the brink of self-discovery, but “Normal Girl” feels like a wider ballad detailing the standards that patriarchy puts into the minds of every young girl searching for love: “The type of girl I know my daddy, he’d be proud of/ Normal girl/ I really wish I was a normal girl.”
It’s an anthem for Black girls who have been called difficult, weird, and odd. May we know them, be them, and raise them to understand they are more than what this world tells them they are. The true beauty of this song is in the bridge, “This time next year, I’ll be living so good/ Won’t remember no pain, I swear.” Echoes of wanting to assimilate and acquiesce are met with dreams of a better future that will make this song an anthem for years to come.
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“Broken Clocks”
Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot It feels like we’re trying to catch SZA before she heads out the door for her next shift when we get to “Broken Clocks.” Much like the later part of CTRL, SZA is really showing us all of her cards at this point. She’s tired, worn out, and unable to keep up the bravado of having her s**t together as she does at the beginning of the album.
Following the sonics of songs like “Love Galore” and “Doves In The Wind,” “Broken Clocks” sounds like the fine melding of both those records with an artist trying to make ends meet. It hits all of the strong points of SZA’s music: honesty with an echoing 808 that moves at the pace of what seems to be the singer’s daily routine. No time to worry about an ex, as she works 12-hours shifts to cover her next light bill and avoid losing herself all at once.
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“20 Something”
Image Credit: Top Dawg/RCA Surviving your 20s is hard. You’re virtually afraid of everything, yet constantly on the edge of some kind of new awakening every time you feel something. Throughout the final track of CTRL, SZA sends listeners into a bluesy, solemn prayer for all of the 20-something-year-olds in the chaos of their lives.
As the singer’s mom later says in the song, “If it’s an illusion, I don’t wanna wake up because the alternative is an abyss, a hole, a darkness, a nothingness.” The track contains an evergreen resonance. Much of the album feels rooted in exploration, identity, and groovy moments of loss and longing, but “20 Something” feels like a revolving door that listeners can always return to. Years later, many fans can remember where they were when they first heard this song, the lessons they’ve learned, the friends they’ve lost, and how their relationships with love have shifted since.
“20 Something” is an elegy that pulls listeners in and casts them back out to the wide sea of life over and over again.