With “A Toast”, the opener of BITCH, her fifth studio album, Lizzo sets the stage for a tonal reset: “I hope it makes you happy to hurt somebody else/And when you lose it all, I hope you find yourself... And that you get what you deserve.” It’s easy to picture Lizzo sitting alone at the piano in a dark room as the bass swells and the volume builds behind this cathartic goodbye. She is raising a glass to the feelings and relationships that no longer serve her; she’s “letting go to free [her] mind”. BITCH is a dramatic pivot from the empowering anthems that filled her mantel with awards and landed her at the top of the charts and festival lineups, and that’s okay: Lizzo hasn’t necessarily felt “Good as Hell” for a minute, but instead of leaning more heavily into hyper-positive pop, she’s processing the complicated, thorny situations she’s lived through since the heyday of “Juice”. As she vents on “BITCH”, which has her putting a 2026 spin on the ’90s angst of Meredith Brooks’ single, “You want me to be everything except a human being.” If 2022’s Special and 2019’s Cuz I Love You focused on self-empowerment, BITCH is about self-defense and self-reliance. That prompted some of her most candid, filter-free lyrical work to date, as well as ample instrumental experimentation. She ventured into Strokesian rock with 2025’s “Love in Real Life”, but the epic power balladry of “Don’t Make Me Love U” feels fresh because it’s unexpected, as is the pop-punk pace of “She Stole My Man”. Her rap flow returns with “Sexy Ladies”, which samples D.C. go-go act UCB. Her strongest vocal performances sail over minimal arrangements, notably on “Like a Crime”, which starts with her singing over a slowly picked acoustic guitar. BITCH does have her settling scores—with former friends, first with “A Toast” (“Here’s a toast to the ones who hurt me most”) and then with “Too Nice” (“My come-up changed you more than it changed me”), and former lovers (“Whose Hair Is This”; “Like a Crime”). But ultimately, BITCH is less about vengeance and spite than hope and resiliency. As she sings on “A Toast”, “I’m finally who I said I’d be for the first time.”