I'm on Too Late and this album has been really fantastic all the way through so far. Smoking on My Ex Pack is a mindblower. The Radiohead interpolation on Special! Not agreeing with the overstuffed complaint really. I'm luxuriating in this.
This album is fucking awesome. If only it was released earlier, it would have landed high on my AOTY list.
My music year ends on December 1, sorry. I finalize all my lists, I don’t have time to do these holiday drops. Also not enough time to absorb them. SZA will be on my 2023 list.
Based on my first listen, I think the only song that feels like an outright throwaway track is Open Arms.
Publications absolutely should have the integrity to wait until the new year. With individuals, who cares. End of the year gets busy man and the last thing some people wanna do when a new year starts is begin ranking music from last year. If you’re passionate enough about something from December just sub it in later once you’ve had time to sit with it or whatever, I promise no one really cares Anyway who cares it’s SZA day and this record is great. That sorta stutter-y beat on Seek and Destroy is so sick
All you're doing is making November releases as irrelevant as you think December releases are to the rest of us, arguably making it even worse to absorb MORE music than doing it the regular way, because more albums are dropped in November than December.
And that’s all fine and good but this is not a 2023 album just because he made some arbitrary list. It’s a 2022 record. That’s not up for debate.
It’s been a little deflating to be a SZA fan over the past couple years but man I’m just so happy this is finally out, even if it’s a little bloated there’s so much good stuff here. Even more I’d imagine it’s been insanely deflating to be SZA herself throughout all this. I hope she’s celebrating with middle fingers up to TDE today, she’s about to crush 2023
Listening now and mostly enjoying - Ctrl took many listens to fully sink in and I think this is going to be the same. That said, holy shit at Gone Girl