Everything You’ve Heard About Summer Walker’s ‘Still Over It’ is True. It’s a Masterpiece

How do we feel about Summer Walker? How do we feel about Still Over It? Like everyone else, we suppose, and why not? The album is number one in the world by way of ostensibly every measure possible, and though that marker and the idea that an album truly is a masterpiece aren’t mutually exclusive, (trendy chart-toppers have come and gone), this here isn’t the case. Summer Walker has truly delivered a masterful collection meandering through the auditory channels of R&B, and rocketed her way platinum bound while detailing – through the less than rose-colored glasses of her emotional expanse – the tugged heartstrings of love, lust, fame, and the roller coaster of unpredictability that her mental health has been subjected to in consequence. She’s an open book, which is something that she’s spoken on struggling with in the past, especially when it comes to battling social anxiety that has only become a larger obstacle the more infamous she and her music have become. But the way through which music she is able to shine a light on her own struggles is clearly connecting with a larger audience than just about anyone in the R&B sphere – any artist, period – in recent memory.

It’s hard to be a superstar these days. Not only because of all of the bullshit that one has to endure, but because of the sheer quantity of music being released by an ever-expanding mass of artistry who have been able to take advantage of social media and music technologies to create and release everything independently. In fact, that’s how Summer, herself got started when she taught herself guitar and started posting covers on Youtube in 2017. And yet, playing the same games that the studio legends and the independent moguls have both been playing for years, Summer Walker stands alone heading into the closing weeks of 2021: a year undeniably marked by an absurd number of other noteworthy releases that still haven’t found themselves able to equal a response like that to Still Over It.

The follow-up to her debut project, Over It, and the second studio album from the burgeoning soulstress turned sensationally recognized R&B queen, Summer Walker’s newest project defies many of the expectations that the industry and fans at large have perhaps unfairly placed on albumhood in the modern era. It’s a marathon, dialed in at 20 songs that together span more than an hour, at a time when the short project dotted with short tracks has predominantly reigned. It folds in a swatch of featuring names – some established Neo-Soul legends and some fellow rising R&B royalty – without ever seeming cluttered; without every feeling like it’s someone else’s show. At a moment of unchecked ego and hype-chasing drama for musicians on and off of social media, Summer Walker’s supporting cast play their roles, and play them perfectly. Cardi B opens with a dynamically supportive monologue, JT from CityGirls brings the energy, SZA is SZA, Ari Lennox is Ari Lennox, and so on, and so forth with Pharrell, Omarion, and Ciara also signing on to Still Over It. Oh, and Lil Durk has a verse, too. It’s a showing of vibrant support for Summer Walker’s claim to some sort of figurative thrown – or perhaps a real one being erected somewhere in Atlanta.

And through it all, any listener, anywhere, with any mosaic of listening preferences, is unavoidably immersed and hypnotized by the crystalline register and eternally downtrodden-strong poet that is Summer Walker. The features certainly bring their own unique touch to it all, and through many tracks, they even set the energy. But Summer Walker is the baseline. She’s the precedent who has no problem keeping pace with any of it. Case and point: Ex For A Reason featuring JT from City Girls, or Dat Right There featuring Pharrell and The Neptunes. The most high-tempo, fast-paced, experimentally nuanced, and pop-adjacent beats on the album, and Summer Walker annihilates them both. As far as the rest of the album is concerned? Too easy.

The slow, meditative, traditional R&B with a new-wave cut is Summer Walker’s bread and butter. Poetically navigating the rest of the album with a layered expression of emotion wallowing in the constant relationship struggles that plagued her debut album, and though evolved, continue to plague her current one, too, she constantly proves worth the hype of staying in sad on a Saturday night. And really, there’s not much more we can say that hasn’t already been said. No skips. A masterpiece. A momentous mark for R&B. And most of all, an immersive escape for anyone listening, at a time in history when an auditory escape might be more necessary than ever before.