In a new interview with the Guardian, the musician born Solána Rowe revealed that the only reason Ctrl finally came out in June is because she was cut off by her label. One day, she said, she returned to her studio and found her hard drive removed from a safe. “They just took my hard drive from me. That was all. I just kept fucking everything up. I just kept moving shit around. I was choosing from 150, 200 songs, so I’m just like, who knows what’s good any more?” she said. As to whether the record was even the final version, she said, “give me another month and it would have been something completely different.”
It’s surprising to hear that Ctrl is not the final product SZA envisioned, considering it feels near perfect—but she also comes off as an extreme perfectionis, telling the reporter she was driving herself crazy over the music. Rowe promised that she won’t be as anxious putting out her next record, but for now at least we can finally enjoy Ctrl and the consistently beautiful music videos she’s released along with it. The latest, out today, is for “Supermodel,” in which Rowe struts through the woods in a silky nightgown among fairies and shoots fireworks out of her fingers, which I can only imagine is a highly realistic portrayal of SZA’s day-to-day activities.
