Let's talk about the posthumous SOPHIE album...
The late pop icon's first posthumous release, sadly, leaves a lot to be desired.
English producer, songwriter, and forever icon SOPHIE was a prolific artist, producing hundreds of tracks for both herself and other artists, however, only a small percentage of them were officially released during her lifetime. In fact, a vast majority of her work went unreleased, instead appearing in sections of her legendary DJ sets or leaking in various states of completion across YouTube and SoundCloud. At the time of her tragic passing in January 2021, SOPHIE was reportedly working on the follow-up to her incredible debut album, OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES (2018), and one of the biggest questions on everyone’s minds was whether or not the new album or any of her phenomenal unreleased catalog would ever see the light of the day. Fortunately, we wouldn’t have to wonder for very long, as Benny Long — SOPHIE’s brother and close collaborator — unveiled plans to put out some of her unreleased work in an interview with Billboard in June of that year, assuring the underground pop music scene that her legacy would continue after her family had enough time to grieve.
For the next three years, SOPHIE’s estate was radio silent regarding posthumous SOPHIE music until this past June, when it was announced that her self-titled sophomore album would be released in September to great excitement from the scene. Longtime fan favorite tracks “Reason Why” with German singer-songwriter Kim Petras and American musical duo BC Kingdom, “Exhilarate” with German singer-songwriter and rapper Bibi Bourelly, and “My Forever” with Canadian singer-songwriter and producer Cecile Believe were dropped as singles, and people were ready to celebrate SOPHIE’s life and legacy with a brand new body of work. Then the album arrived, and as much as it pains me to admit, it is far from what people were expecting, and sadly, leaves a lot to be desired.
According to Benny Long (who served as the record’s executive producer) in an interview with The Guardian, he and SOPHIE had already planned out much of the album’s fixtures from its tracklist to the arrangements, and at the time of her passing, it was nearly complete and “just needed finishing touches”. He further explained that “extensive conversations” with his sister helped guide him in completing the record in order to reach a final result that would have been as close to her vision as possible.
Unfortunately, his endeavor to finish the project based on educated guesses did not serve him very well, as SOPHIE has a hollow, impersonal quality to it with many of the tracks still sounding unfinished despite Long’s best efforts. SOPHIE was an extremely intentional artist, and the creative choices she made down to the final touches are what made her productions so dynamic and unique. Her absence on this album is tangible, and rather than a testament to the fact that her legacy will live on forever (which it will), it’s a painful reminder that she is truly gone and that her vision cannot be replicated by even those closest to her.
The tracklist is messy and disjointed — The inclusion of the previously released “Plunging Asymptote” with American musician and DJ Juliana Huxtable is confusing, and the choice to have the discordant “RAWWWWWW” with American singer-songwriter and rapper Jozzy play after the ethereal “Intro (The Full Horror)” is rather jarring — some of the features feel lazy and half-baked — especially “Live In My Truth” and “Why Lies”, both collaborations with BC Kingdom and American singer-songwriter LIZ Y2K — and the final versions of a few tracks are quite lackluster when compared to their leaked demos — primarily “Do You Wanna Be Alive” with American performance and visual artist Signe Pierce and “Love Me Off Earth” with American singer-songwriter and producer Doss.
There are a handful of tracks, however, that do live up to expectations, such as the aforementioned fan favorites — the punchy “Reason Why”, the anthemic “Exhilarate”, and the breathtaking “My Forever” — as well as the previously unheard “The Dome’s Protection” with Russian producer and DJ Nina Kraviz — an epic ambient ascension moment; “Berlin Nightmare” with Greek singer-songwriter and producer Evita Manji, who was SOPHIE’s partner at the time of her passing — a thumping Euroclub banger; and “Always and Forever” with English singer-songwriter and visual artist Hannah Diamond — a heartfelt and emotional number that speaks to how SOPHIE will always be with us via her music.
“Berlin Nightmare” along with “Do You Wanna Be Alive” and three other tracks — “Elegance”, “One More Time” (both collaborations with the mysterious Popstar), and “Gallop” with Manji — are worth noting because they hold a dark, deconstructed club sound that SOPHIE teased quite a bit between 2018 and 2020 through her DJ sets that featured cult favorite unreleased tracks like “Take Me To Dubai”, “New York’s Burning Down”, and “TRANSNATION”. Perhaps a full commitment to that direction would have suited this record better than trying to showcase every side of SOPHIE’s range from ambient to abrasive to bubblegum pop to clubby to emotional because the lack of focus is one of the most challenging aspects of this project and does not align with the precision and intentionality that SOPHIE brought to her past projects: PRODUCT (2015) and OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES (2018).
Overall, I don’t think trying to complete SOPHIE’s next album was the right path to take, as it left too much room for failure to properly realize her vision, which I fear is exactly what happened with this record. Benny Long and co. shouldn’t have attempted to finish these tracks beyond some final mixing and mastering decisions, and instead, put out a compilation or anthology of sorts comprised of her most prominent unreleased songs the way she left them because the final versions on SOPHIE simply pale in comparison to the leaked versions.
Long has stated that this will be SOPHIE’s final album, but it will not be her only posthumous release, as more tracks are expected to arrive in the form of singles and EPs — a relief to many who were disappointed by the tracklist omitting some of her most sought after unreleased bops like the priorly discussed “Take Me To Dubai”, “New York’s Burning Down”, and “TRANSNATION” but also “Burn Rubber”, “Sunscreen”, “Makeover”, and many others. Hopefully, these tracks will see an official release sometime in the future, and hopefully, they’ll sound better than the ones on this record.
At the end of the day, SOPHIE is no longer with us and that will always be a hard pill to swallow for everyone on the underground pop scene and beyond. She was truly a once-in-a-lifetime artist who was taken way too soon and had so much more to offer the world, and while I’m grateful that her family will be continuing to share her work, I can’t help but be frustrated by this record because I don’t feel that it is an accurate representation of her immense talent as a writer, producer, and pop visionary. SOPHIE was and still is the most important figure on the underground pop scene, and I encourage everyone to discover the beauty of her music.
SOPHIE is available now across all online and streaming platforms!
Watch the visualizer for “Reason Why”: