Bitch (album)

In a September 2025 interview with Vulture, Lizzo explained that she began writing songs for the album in 2022, and that the project was initially more "introspective". She described the album as being based on her experience of "feeling like the world has turned their back on you and then finding your way back into the world". The album was originally going to be titled Love in Real Life, with Lizzo releasing the 2025 singles "Love in Real Life" and "Still Bad" from the project, which both commercially underperformed compared to her label's expectations. Lizzo clarified that she later decided to adopt a more "energetic" tone for the project and take more creative control, explaining that she wanted to "subvert [the] expectation of [herself]" and wanted people to "rediscover who [she is] and fall in love with her again". Subsequently, she recorded seventeen songs in five days, which resulted in her mixtape My Face Hurts from Smiling (2025).^[1]

In April 2026, Lizzo explained in a press statement that she decided to rename the album to Bitch as this "takes a label once used to diminish women and [turns] it into a declaration of confidence, and unapologetic self-love". She also cited works by American rapper Missy Elliott and American singer-songwriter Meredith Brooks as further inspiration behind the title.^[2] On May 12, Lizzo posted a TikTok video where she claimed that social media algorithms are "destroying the music industry", blaming the lack of chronology in the way algorithms present information for making promoting her new album more challenging.^[3]

In an interview with USA Today in June, Lizzo stated that the album is about "reclaiming who [she is]" as "a lot of [her] identity has been manipulated by people outside of [her]". Expanding on the album's change in direction, she explained that "the world has changed a lot in the last few years" and that right now we are "in a time of conflict" and she is "fighting for herself", which is what the album represents.^[4]

Bitch is primarily a pop, hip-hop and R&B album, with elements of G-funk, soul, synth-funk, rock,^[5][6] go-go music, and jazz.^[4][7] The album explores themes of empowerment, vulnerability, and personal growth, built around the central idea of Lizzo defining herself on her own terms and reclaiming who she is.^[4][7] During an appearance on Today in June 2026, Lizzo explained that the album's lyrical content comes from things she needed to express for herself, describing this as being shift from her earlier albums where she wrote songs mainly to uplift other people. She clarified that she still believes her personal experiences can resonate with and help people.^[8]

On February 26, 2026, Lizzo appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers, where she sang an acapella version of "Don't Make Me Love U".^[9] Lizzo embarked on a three-date residency at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York, between February 27 and March 1. During the residency, she performed the album's singles "Don't Make Me Love U" and "Bitch".^[10][11] On March 22, she performed "Don't Make Me Love U" on CBS Mornings.^[12]

On April 27, her birthday, Lizzo shared the album's title, cover art and release date of June 5, while announcing that the album was available for pre-order.^[13] In May, Lizzo appeared on The New York Times' Popcast series, and performed a live stripped-down set of her new material from the album.^[14] On the release day of Bitch, Lizzo appeared on Today's Citi Concert series, where she performed the album's title track,^[15] "Happy 2 Be",^[16] and "Don't Make Me Love U".^[17]

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	4.7/10[27]
Metacritic	50/100[28]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[29]
The Arts Desk	[30]
Beats per Minute	6/10[31]
Financial Times	[32]
The Guardian	[5]
The Independent	[33]
MusicOMH	[34]
Riff Magazine	9/10[6]
Rolling Stone	[35]
Shatter the Standards	[36]

Close

According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Bitch received "mixed or average reviews" based on a weighted average score of 50 out of 100 from 7 critic scores.^[28] The review aggregator site AnyDecentMusic? compiled nine reviews and gave Bitch an average of 4.7 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.^[27]

Writing for Rolling Stone, Maura Johnston described Bitch as "tired and flat", unfavorably comparing the album to its predecessor, My Face Hurts from Smiling (2025). Johnston offered some praise to the track "Sexy Ladies" and its UCB interpolation, dubbing it a "triumphant song of the summer candidate", but wrote that the album's other callbacks to the past "fall flat".^[35] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian described the album as "disjointed" where Lizzo "tries a bit of everything", criticizing the interpolations on the album's singles, "Don't Make Me Love U" and the title track, as "flat" and "affectless". He praised "Whose Hair Is This" as a "great southern soul pastiche" and wrote that the old-school Chicago house bassline on "That Grrrl" had an "energising effect". Petridis concluded that Lizzo had once made music that "perfectly captured a zeitgeist" but had not yet worked out how to respond to the "changed world" we are now living in.^[5]

Roisin O'Connor of The Independent called the album "far from 100 percent" and "oddly frantic", writing that its title suggested a defiant tone while the songs were "strangely muted" and full of "cliched platitudes".^[33] Sam Shepherd of MusicOMH similarly found a disconnect between the album's title and content, describing Bitch as vulnerable rather than driven. He called "A Toast" "confused" and "self-pitying", but praised "Happy 2 Be" for "[picking] up the pace musically".^[34] Erin Lewis of The Arts Desk described the album as "deeply uninspired" and "a hollow repetition of much better songs", though she highlighted Lizzo's flute playing on "Too Nice" and the backing vocals on "Don't Make Me Love U".^[30]

Heather Phares of AllMusic highlighted "Don't Make Me Love U", "Sexy Ladies", "Whose Hair Is This" and "Happy 2 Be" as standouts from the album, but felt that the songs did not measure up to Lizzo's earlier hits and suggested that she was "trying to find her footing" on Bitch.^[29] In a more positive review, Mike DeWald of Riff Magazine called the album "more of a rallying cry than a dwelling downward spiral" and praised its rock and soul influences. DeWald suggested that "the mission here is taking all the negativity — perhaps what she's experienced in recent years — bottling it up and unleashing it with a positive force".^[6] Writing for Beats per Minute, Mary Chiney suggested that Bitch is Lizzo "no longer trying to convince the room", but noted that "the record is the sound of someone who has not, quite, decided whether to trust that yet".^[31]

In the United States, Bitch debuted at number 46 on the Billboard Top Album Sales and number 15 on the Indie Store Album Sales charts with 2,649 pure copies sold.^[37][38][39] The album became Lizzo's first to not chart on the Billboard 200 since Big Grrrl Small World (2015).^[40] The album moved 650 copies in its second week.^[41] In the United Kingdom, Bitch debuted at number 83 on the UK Album Downloads Chart, but missed the UK Albums Chart.^[42] Bitch attained its highest chart position in Hungary, where it reached number 15 on the Hungarian Physical Albums chart.^[43]

Jude Cramer of Fast Company noted the decrease in commercial success for the album relative to Lizzo's previous albums Special (2022) and Cuz I Love You (2019), suggesting that the singer's "foothold in pop culture seems to have slipped".^[44] In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Lizzo blamed the underperformance of the album on the changes in the music industry in the "last three years", explaining that "streaming replaced radio, and I was a radio darling. That's how my fan's [sic] discovered my music".^[44]

Credits are adapted from Tidal.^[46]