The Cosmically Beautiful Sadness of SOPHIE’s Posthumous Album
Transgressive/Future Classic
The sudden loss of Sophie Xeon in January 2021 punched a hole through the heart of the music world. The boundary-breaking producer and musical innovator, known professionally by the mononym SOPHIE, had touched countless listeners with her otherworldly sounds. She was a pioneer of hyperpop whose artistry defined the genre, influencing artists like Rina Sawayama, 100 gecs, and Frost Children to name only a few. Her debut 2018 album OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES earned her a Grammy nomination in the Best Dance/Electronic Album category — a first for any trans artist. Her singular production style even caught the ears of global pop superstars like Madonna, whose 2015 hit “Bitch I’m Madonna” was co-written by the Scottish-born producer.
Three years after her passing, her influence is more evident than ever in the form of 2024 “it girl” Charli XCX, whose 2016 EP VROOM VROOM was completely produced by SOPHIE. That EP signaled a sea change for XCX as one of pop’s top experimentalists, thanks in large part to Sophie’s exaggerated signature sounds. On Brat, which became a de facto summer soundtrack, Charli XCX paid homage to her late friend on the track “So I,” with lyrics referencing the SOPHIE ballad “It’s Okay to Cry.” Given this profound impact on our present moment, the release of SOPHIE, her posthumous self-titled sophomore album, is a vital tribute to her legacy that couldn’t arrive at a more fitting time.
SOPHIE was close to completion before her tragic accidental death at the age of 34, and it was finished with the help of studio manager and collaborator Benny Long, who had assisted SOPHIE with mixing, mastering and some production on OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES. The two had worked together on the concept of SOPHIE for years prior to her death. The genre-hopping album, out Sep 27 via Transgressive and Future Classic, features vocals from some of her closest collaborators including Kim Petras, Juliana Huxtable, and PC music stalwart Hannah Diamond.
To the excited surprise of fans, the first SOPHIE single dropped in late June. The pop banger “Reason Why,” featuring Kim Petras and BC Kingdom, showcases the euphoric house vibes that SOPHIE perfected and serves as a spiritual sequel to her 2013 single “Nothing More To Say.” Though there is a playfulness to the track, with lyrics celebrating Ibiza party culture and designer clothes, Sophie’s passing lends an ineffable melancholy to even the most upbeat tracks on the record. Tracks like the spritely “Why Lies” — another collaboration with BC Kingdom, this time with vocals from Y2K revival artist LIZ — have a certain unavoidable metatextual sadness. The track highlights Sophie’s most saccharine pop proclivities with space age synths and ’90s freestyle rhythms. But the sweetness of the nostalgia-coded number only accentuates the painful loss of a vibrant creative mind, making the party atmosphere all the more bittersweet and fragile.
Perhaps the most poignant track — and my personal favorite on SOPHIE — is the Hannah Diamond collaboration “Always and Forever,” a hyperpop lullabye that feels like a goodbye letter to a dear friend. With cascading synths accented with gentle digital squeaks atop a simple pulsating beat, the track is refreshingly featherlight, made even more delicate by Diamond’s wispy vocals front and center. “Always and forever, forever and for always, we’ll be shining together,” she sings. “And as the years go by, you’ll still be by my side.” Her childlike timbre makes the song all the more touching. Though simple in composition and the most understated track on the record, the song seems to carry the most weight. It is enigmatic in the sense that it was produced and written by SOPHIE, yet its lyrics take on a haunting, heartbreaking new meaning because it had to be completed in her absence.
The “Unholy” singer is the first out trans woman to win the Best Pop Duo award.
That emotional mystery is metonymic for the project of the album writ large. In many ways, SOPHIE grapples with being a tribute while also serving as the producer’s final transmission from beyond. The 16-track collection resonates with reverberating echoes of her remarkable catalog while beautifully capturing the essence of what could have been. Her unique heaven-sent talent makes it challenging to really know what new heights of sonic innovation the producer would have gone on to concoct, and SOPHIE can ultimately only offer a glimpse of that alternate future. This is not a perfectly coherent, effortlessly masterful LP like OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES, but that is no fault to the many collaborators, Long included, who painstakingly worked on completing this labor of love. Indeed, there is something more cosmic, spiritual and inexpressible about what is missing —a poignant reminder of the profound void left by SOPHIE’s departure from our astral plane.
A statement from SOPHIE’s family prior to the release of this album reads, “Sophie didn’t often speak publicly of her private life, preferring to put everything she wanted to articulate in her music… It feels only right to share with the world the music she hoped to release, in the belief that we can all connect with her in this, the form she loved most.”
SOPHIE is her final gift —a reminder of what we’ve lost and a celebration of connections that last far beyond our exit from this planet.
SOPHIE is available September 27 via Transgressive and Future Classic.
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