SZA has taken 2023 by storm with her commercially and critically successful album SOS. The album has topped the Billboard 200 chart for seven weeks, which makes it the first R&B album to spend its first seven weeks at No. 1 since Whitney Houston’s Whitney in 1987. The album earned 111,000 album-equivalent units this past week.
SZA Continues To Break Records
Since SOS’ release in December, the album has generated 1.4 billion streams and an equivalent of 1.1 million sales. It is the first album to stay seven weeks on top of the Billboard 200 since Taylor Swifts Folklore in 2020, which has a total of eight non-consecutive weeks. The album is also the first to have its first seven weeks at the top of the chart following Adele’s 25 in 2016. On the album’s release date, it sold a total of 308,000 units. In its first week, the album garnered 404.58 million on-demand official streams, breaking the record for the biggest streaming week ever for an R&B album and becoming the second biggest streaming week for an album by a female artist. Metacritic named it the fifth-best album of 2022. “SZA is still herself, but with a twist… SZA 2.0, who amplifies her sexuality and inner gangster,” FMHipHop writes.
SOS contains 23, pen-game strong songs with features from Don Toliver, Pheobe Bridgers, Travis Scott and an Ol’ Dirty Bastard sample. It follows the singer’s incomparable 2016 album CTRL
“I think this album was partially inspired by love lost, but mostly inspired by my departure from attempting to be a nice girl,” she said in a Rolling Stone interview. “I’ve tried to be a nice girl for so long and it’s just not who I am, inherently.”
SZA will be kicking off the sold-out SOS tour on February 21 in Columbus, OH with stops in Chicago, Washington D.C., two nights at the Madison Square Garden and Seattle. The Grammy-nominated Omar Apollo will be joining SZA as the opener for the duration of the tour.
Written By: Roy Lott
