There’s nothing we like more than when the most most beloved songs of our youth get a modern makeover… so long as they’re not acoustic renditions of dance bangers. Thankfully, SZA isn’t known for her dreary guitar-strumming, which is why it’s always a joy when she decides to take a classic tune and make it her own.
Her latest cover came during a recent performance Down Under. The singer was performing a headline slot at Splendour in the Grass Festival in Byron Bay, Australia, when she dropped her version of Wheatus’s ultimate misfit anthem Teenage Dirtbag.
Thinking about it, Teenage Dirtbag is the perfect song for SZA to cover. Not only does her beautifully raspy voice suit those early 00s pop rock guitars, but if her debut album Ctrl taught us anything about the singer, it’s that she’s no stranger to insecurities and feeling like an outsider. The perfect breeding ground to be a teenage dirtbag, tbh. Watch the various videos of her covering the track below.
Teenage Dirtbag isn’t the first that SZA has given an iconic song a do-over. Earlier this year, she covered Sixpence None the Richer’s Kiss Me and we were living for it. Honestly, we’d be down for a whole album of SZA just covering massive tunes from the 90s and 00s.
Still, it doesn’t look like that’s what SZA is working on. During the performance in Australia, she also shared an extract of a new song called Brace Yourself.
DROP THE ALBUM!