Breakups, booty calls and bare-all balladry: SZA's 20 best songs – ranked!
For a moment early on in her career, it looked as if SZA might become a kind of avant-R&B figurehead. That wasn't how it panned out, but Ice Moon, the single from her second EP, S, is evidence of where she once seemed to be headed: a poppy, but distinctly psychedelic swirl of blissful vocals and electronics.
Prom might be the most overlooked track on SZA's debut album. Another painfully drawn saga of insecurity, it's equipped with a fabulous, incongruously buoyant melody, set to music that underlines the breadth and diversity of SZA's vision: the clipped beat and guitar owes as much to alt-rock as R&B.
Her debut EP, See.SZA.Run, has evaded streaming services, but it's worth seeking out: different to the music that made SZA famous but still great. The supremely spaced-out wash of synths on standout Time Travel Undone explains why the Guardian compared it to not just the Weeknd, but the Cocteau Twins.
A smart take on PartyNextDoor's hit Come and See Me: SZA takes on the role of the woman on the receiving end of the original's booty call, slowly realising that her suitor's only after one thing. It revealed a more straightforward and earthy SZA, but was curiously dropped from the tracklisting of CTRL.
More fabulous left-field arcana from SZA's early years: Terror.Dome opens with a chunk of dialogue from horror movie Rosemary's Baby, the perfect complement to the eerie, echo-drenched sound of what follows: sparse synths, booming drums, cooing vocals at odds with the lyrics, in which infatuation has clearly turned to worrying obsession.
Signed up by Top Dawg Entertainment – the label that gave the world Kendrick Lamar – SZA scored her first hit with Child's Play, a Chance the Rapper collab from her EP Z. But its real stand out is the deep cut Sweet November: a dreamy delight that samples a Marvin Gaye obscurity.
Joni had a tortuous gestation: SZA leaked a version online in 2020, fans leaked another in 2023, prompting SZA to announce she wouldn't release it officially. She changed her mind: a good thing, given how utterly lovely its Joni Mitchell-inspired melody and sample of the late Elliott Smith's guitar playing sound.
20 Something draws CTRL to a sombre, soul-bearing conclusion driven by acoustic guitar: SZA's life's a mess, she's alone, fearful of adult responsibilities that she doesn't feel ready to accept, a situation to which, evidently, millions of fans could relate. It ends, winningly, with a faintly exasperated pep talk from her mum.
The first single from SOS suggested things hadn't improved much emotionally in SZA's world: the line about 'trying to get my mind together before the end of the world' struck a particularly resonant note on release, in the midst of the pandemic. The sparkling, summery prettiness of the music somehow amplifies the gloom.
The deluxe version of SOS, Lana, appended an entire album's worth of new material to the original: quite why it wasn't released as an album in its own right is a mystery when the new songs were as good as Saturn, a shimmering ballad that's the match of anything on the original album.
The brilliance of Garden lies in the tension between the music – trap drums beneath a haze of electronics and vocal samples spiked with euphorically bubbling electronic tones – and the rawness of SZA's vocal and the emotions it draws: yearning and pleading for emotional reassurance and commitment amid a burst of insecurity.
One of several songs on SOS in which SZA makes no bones about how aggrieved she feels after a breakup, I Hate U sets its 4am drunk-dialling despair and bile – 'It's shitty of you to make me feel like this!' – to a superb musical backdrop made of equal parts murky lo-fi R&B and smooth yacht rock.
Snooze came in two, equally great versions – the original is classic R&B that would have been a hit at any point in the last 30 years ('aunties approve of its authenticity,' as one critic put it); the acoustic version is woozily dreamy and features Justin Bieber. Both are poignant, confessional and softly powerful.
Just a guest appearance, but let's bend the rules a little: this surprisingly slick contribution to the Black Panther soundtrack is worth it. It's theoretically Kendrick's show, but it gifts SZA an absolute monster of a chorus, which she totally nails: they feel like equal partners, which is quite some feat.
The point which you might suggest SZA as we now know her came into being, Drew Barrymore is direct, relatable and witty – 'with her mom jeans and her new Vans, she's perfect and I hate her' – and musically striking: spare beats, twanging guitar. The titular movie star was apparently impressed.
Performed live while SZA soared above the audience in a boat (!), Nobody Gets Me takes an intriguing route to anthemic ballad territory: it's alternately crestfallen, raunchy, intimate and subject to some spectacular vocal pyrotechnics. The chorus is key: it's got a definite slice of Natalie Imbruglia's Torn in its DNA, but it really works.
Classic cheating soul – 'my man is your man … you like 9 to 5, I'm the weekend' – retooled for today: slow beats, soft synths, a sample from Justin Timberlake's Set the Mood (Prelude). Calvin Harris's excellent remix, meanwhile, recasts it as mid-tempo disco. Both versions are great – take your pick.
Wikipedia describes 2023's third biggest-selling single as a murder ballad. It is, although that doesn't capture how engagingly witty its fantasies of offing an ex are – she follows him 'at the farmer's market, with your perfect peach' – amplified by the pure pop sweetness of its chorus.
If you had to pick a song that summed up SZA's multi-platinum appeal, Broken Clocks would be it. The lyrics exemplify her brand of confessional, no-filter intensity, depicting a life on the brink of chaos: still haunted by the memory of an ex from years ago, not even she can work out how she feels. The music blends R&B classicism with trap beats and a distinct note of chillwave-derived fogginess. Her voice feels powerful and natural: it has an unaffected, almost conversational quality, as if she's confiding in the listener. And the chorus is superb, built for an audience who know how she feels to howl along to.
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