For SZA fans, there’s no doubt that patience is the greatest virtue there is. After the singer released her progressively eponymous EPs S and Z in 2013 and 2014, she began working on the final installment, A. While it was originally slated for a 2015 release, after a plethora of sessions that resulted in some 150 to 200 songs, it eventually evolved into SZA’s debut 2017 album, Ctrl. And surprising no one, it was worth the wait. It then took another five years and over 100 songs for SOS to come to light in 2022. This new album was given an even warmer reception. It spent 10 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and achieved the kind of commercial success that Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston saw in their early careers, while also being showered with critical accolades, earning itself album of the year nominations at major awards shows like the Grammys.

Deluxe and expanded editions of albums are extremely commonplace nowadays, so it’s no surprise that an album of SOS’s caliber would get an updated release that includes bonus tracks. Still, few could’ve expected the collection of additional tracks to become a masterpiece in its own right. People customarily consider albums to be a format already set in stone following a process of careful curation. Yet the expanded version of SOS—first hinted at in early 2023 with talks of around 10 additional tracks—soon promised to be more than just the old album with a handful of extras tacked on after leaks, SZA announcing she’d start from scratch, and the adoption of an entirely new title, LANA. These were the events leading up to the release of the deluxe album LANA—otherwise known as SOS Deluxe: LANA—with 15 additional tracks. As a result, much of the discourse has inevitably fallen into two camps—one suggesting LANA’s tracks are the SOS cutting room floor, and the other arguing that LANA stands on its own as a full-fledged body of work. But the two viewpoints don’t appear to be mutually exclusive. In fact, isn’t it a little unfair to say that LANA being an extension of the original album is inherently a shortcoming?

SZA has always had a gift for blending an honest look at the vulnerability of the human experience with exceptional music. The reason she seems unable to stop writing and recording new material for her albums may be that her music reflects the gradual, ongoing transformations in her life—a fact that makes Ctrl and SOS records of roughly the first decade of her life as a musician.
If good art has a tendency to speak to universal truths through an exploration of the deeply personal, then SZA is doing exactly that for pop music. LANA is a follow-up to those past 10 years, building on the emotional turmoil of her two earlier projects while taking things a step further.

SZA makes it clear right from its confessional opener, “No More Hiding,” what her new album is all about. She looks inward (“Cut myself open to see what I’m made of”) while learning to embrace herself (“I wanna be real me, ugly”), remaining tender and open yet also resolute (“Had to bury everything twice over”). In “My Turn,” she transitions away from assassination fantasies like earlier hits “Love Galore” (feat. Travis Scott) and “Kill Bill,” asserting her strength (“My turn, mine to do the hurtin’ / Your turn to bear the burden”). And as she sings in “Crybaby,” SZA is ready now to return any shots fired: “I know you told stories about me / Most of them awful, all of them true.” The last new track, “Saturn,” finds her reflecting on “karma” and “nirvana,” recognizing they promise little solace for her own personal issues (“Sick of this head of mine”) or the world’s (“The good die young and poor”), but she clings to the hope that she’ll find a life that’s better on Saturn. But this isn’t a case of the singer being evasive. SZA carefully defines the issues at hand and stays strong enough that she never loses her sense of humor and instead dreams of new possibilities.

LANA’s musical cohesiveness and placid tone provide a striking contrast to the genre experimentation found on the original SOS. Still, it can’t be classified as a weak offering, even when compared to the original tracks. By focusing on warm, dreamy analog synths and a guitar-driven R&B sound, SZA ensures her message is brought to the foreground of LANA. Tracks like “Kitchen” and “Crybaby” show how adhering to genre conventions is far from something to be vilified. Rather, they’re perfect examples of how the timeless approach blends seamlessly with SZA’s vocals to make something all the more captivating. If anything, her versatile genre chops remain as sharp as ever, albeit less restrained than before. Take “BMF,” for instance, which interpolates the bossa nova standard “The Girl from Ipanema” liberally to create playfulness and emotional depth—or the brooding guitar riffs on “Scorsese Baby Daddy,” over which SZA’s voice feels right at home.

Still, there’s reasons LANA is ultimately seen as an extension of SOS. According to some, while it might be a stellar footnote to SZA’s work to date, it’s not a blueprint for where she’s headed next. If some people are left feeling disappointed because of this, it might just be because expectations were so high to begin with. Even now, lots of SZA’s fans have their own personal wish list populated by dozens of unreleased songs, teased through live performances and snippets, that they hope the singer will officially release. That speaks to how the way she’s always stayed true to her authentic self and her artistic vision has contributed to her popularity—and proves it has nothing to do with playing the album game as it’s expected to be played. It’s rare to find an artist whose bonus tracks improve upon the original releases. It’s impossible to say where SZA’s headed next at any given time, and that’s exactly what her fans love about her.