‘Special’ Review: Lizzo’s Self-Love Pep Talk

metroweekly.com:

Special (★★★★☆), it’s easy to see why a song that reveled in drama and clapped back against haters and internet mobs didn’t make the cut.Her fourth album and second major studio release is a far cry from the nonchalance and bristliness of “Rumors,” and is stronger for it.Special is a lovefest from beginning to end.

Living in Lizzo’s world means never having to argue for your worth or desirability. Lizzo knows she’s beautiful and preternaturally likable, and it’s hard not to agree with her when she sings that she’s got that, “Oh, hell no, you can’t get this at the store.”She is completely (and refreshingly) uninterested in putting on any kind of affected coolness, and that sincerity is on full display in “I Love You Bitch,” when she gets gooey about the little things that strike you about someone you’ve just fallen in love with.All that natural charisma certainly doesn’t hurt, but she’s also eager to share the love and boost your confidence any chance she gets, as she does in the lovefest “Birthday Girl.”For the most part, Lizzo remains squarely in her thematic comfort zone with buoyant, feel-good anthems to self-love, body positivity, and sisterhood.

The impressive feat she pulls on Special is keeping each track sounding fresh and different while staying so squarely in that comfort zone.It helps that she knows exactly where her strengths lie, and one of the big ones is her intuitive understanding that much of her appeal lies in her honest, unabashed confidence and swagger.There’s something to be said for knowing her audience, too, having dropped her cheeky, lighthearted queer anthem “Everybody’s Gay” during a “Night of a 1,000 Lizzos” event.Lizzo is almost impossibly charismatic, and she knows it.