SZA FINALLY releases that damn song, “Shirt”

SZA finally did it y’all. She actually released that damn song “Shirt”, that she’d teased via a TikTok, had all the girls doing challenges to and then left the fandom starved for the whole song. She even had the nerve to do a whole gig for Grey Goose, and only performed the snippet from the music video to “Good Days”.

Rude.

Having heard the full song, I’m not the biggest fan of it. This hasn’t stopped me from shaking ass at the petrol station to it though. But I think “Shirt” will end up being one of those songs which will work better when heard as part of the album. I tell you which song I am a fan of though, that other song we hear at the end of the music video. Just as SZA did for “Good Days” in the video for “Hit Different”, the end of the video gives us a song better than that of which the whole music video was for. Let us also take a moment to acknowledge Missy Elliott being one of the pioneers of previewing other songs at the end of music videos. We don’t give her enough credit as it is, but this shit right there is one thing which will forever remind me of Missy Elliott.

HENNYWAY.

SZA - Shirt | © 2022 Top Dawg Entertainment,  RCA Records

There’s still no word on a release date for SZA’s follow-up to the mega successful and manages to keep being more successful album, Ctrl. But she’s recording songs, primarily with Benny Blanco, who seems like a weird choice initially, due to being more known for his work with Ke$ha from the Dr. Puke days, than his work for the likes of Jessie Ware’s Tough Love album.

Fans are speculating the title of SZA’s album might be No Ctrl, because of the license plate in the music video. It would actually be really cool and smart for SZA to have Ctrl be her brand, and to have it feature in all of her album titles, similar to how Adele does with her age, or as Mariah used to do with her samey-themed album titles. At one point I figured the album title would be Solana. But No Ctrl would be better and make more sense.

“Shirt” has managed to help SZA break a streaming record or two, and shows that not only does she still have fans waiting on a new album, but that her fanbase is bigger than it was when Ctrl dropped. When SZA releases a new song, it feels like it’s been a long-ass time since she did anything. But then I think about all that SZA had released since 2020, and we got that Trolls song with Justin Timberlake, “Hit Different”, “Good Days”, “Kiss Me More” with that “Say So” woman, a feature on the soundtrack for the LeBron Space Jam movie that nobody liked, “No Love” with Summer Walker, that song for the Dear Evan Hansen movie and a feature on new version of Doechii’s “Persuasive”. And in the midst of this we got a re-release of Ctrl. So SZA is keeping plenty busy and doing enough to keep her name out there whilst she gets her album to a place that she’s happy with it.

I think it’s incredible that SZA is in the position that she’s in, because it’s such a rare one; to be able to leave such huge gaps between albums, but still have a sizeable fanbase and a wider audience turn up for what you put out.