Album Review: SOPHIE - Sophie (2024)

Is she back???

This is my second time writing this review. I've never done that with these before. I normally try to just fart them out, and normally I'm okay with the outcome because I honestly don't have that much to say. It's just content. This feels different though. I have a lot of thoughts about SOPHIE, what her music represented, and what this posthumous release actually means. Some of them are well reasoned, and others are more passionate. It’s hard to organize them into something that is coherent, snappy, and (most importantly) short. I know y'all don't like to read. 

The conundrum I ran into with the last draft was making the argument that this release doesn't really represent who (and what) SOPHIE was. It much more resembles an autopsy- an insight into the ideas she was toying with.¹ I strongly believe that if she was still here, she would not have put this out, at least not in the state we have received it. That said, I understand that putting this out has less to do with making an immaculate record, and more to do with the family coming to terms with her legacy. It's clear from the NYT interview that she was loved so dearly by her family, and that in many ways, her career was almost like a group activity for them. They wanted to see her succeed and we're willing to support her vision as best they could. 

This begs the question: what was her vision? How are we supposed to ask what another artist “meant” to release? As an artist myself, I know how unintentional and accidental music can be. I also know how picky and stubborn artists can be and the minutiae of details we can struggle over. I know how scared we can be to put out a sub-par product, and I know how non-linear the process of making a record is. It's hard to know when something is “done.” Often times, that is more of decision an artist makes, rather than a set of objective criteria that a work must meet. On top of that, SOPHIE's production was both idiosyncratic and meticulous. She is one of the only producers I've ever tried to emulate. One of the few producers that truly pushed me to make my art better. Even though I am not her brother, her music meant a lot to me, and I am intimately familiar with it. 

So, unlike all the bros on RYM, I'm not gonna say this record “doesn't sound like SOPHIE.” It does. Kinda. It resembles SOPHIE in much the same way a zombie resembles the person that got infected. You can see traces of her all over it, but something feels vaguely off or missing. There are choices and moments all over this thing that feel so uncharacteristic of her work. There is a certain lack of precision and intentionality to the whole thing. A lack of evolution and dynamism. A lack of life. I genuinely believe that if she were still alive today and put this record out, and it sounded exactly like this, critics would be right to pan it. It would have indicated a fall off of monumental proportions. Empirical proof that doing ketamine does in fact ruin your brain. 

“But Theresa,” I hear you scream. “How can you say that?? She was always changing her sound and breaking with the past. Just because it doesn't sound like her previous work doesn't mean it's not her vision.” Yes, there is a lot of truth to that, but these tracks aren't really a deviation from her sound.² There is nothing on here that she hasn't covered before. She's made ambient tracks and she's made beats for rappers. Compare “The Dome’s Protection” to “Whole New World/Pretend World.” Compare “SAMO” to “RAWWWWWW.” The level of detail in the production, the evolution of the track over time, the moment-to-moment variation, it just isn't there on the posthumous release. Like, we know what a finished SOPHIE track sounds like. It’s not this.

On top of that, we know what her unfinished tracks sound like! Compare this release of “Reason Why” to the demo of it from 2019. Why does it sound almost exactly the same? Now you might say that because it sounds nearly the same, that adds credence to the idea that it was her vision. But if it wasn't good enough to put out then, why is it good enough to put out now? It also doesn't really give me confidence in Benny's mixing abilities. I know he's been involved in a lot of SOPHIE’s work, but if he put as much effort into this as he did those projects, it really makes it clear how much of the heavy lifting was done by her. ³⁴ ⁵

That's the thing: it's tricky to know when a track is “done.” Most of my releases are a combination of ego, capitalism, and rushing to meet a deadline. Finishing things is a discipline, but it's also a politic. The upper echelon of the music industry is notorious for its Medusa of competing interests, and the way those interests interfere (constructively or destructively) with the artistic process. There's all kinds of wrangling to do, permissions to be granted, and hoops of all varieties. Maybe that's why some of the unreleased tracks that the fans have been demanding for a while weren't on this. The Charli team wouldn’t let them get Bounce. Hayden wouldn't give them Baby Bubbles. And SOPHIE straight up said Burn Rubber was never coming out, so yeah. Maybe they had trouble getting into her laptop. IDK.⁶ 

And so it begs the question: why did this come out at all? Benny Long has said very openly that this album really does represent her vision, and that this record was nearly finished before she died, and that he talked with her extensively about the tracks and knows what she was going for.⁷ Even if that is true, I think framing it as “staying true to her vision” only invites pretentious assholes like myself to pick apart the music, and the reality is that doing so has led me to conclude the opposite. If instead he presented this as a compilation of songs that he knew were being worked on and were gonna come out at some point but he wanted to put them out to give the fans more SOPHIE (and also shed insight into where she was taking her craft) then I wouldn't be able to sit here and nitpick the album. The presentation of the music is almost as important as the music itself, and it's clear that presenting this album as his sister's authentic vision is very important to him. But he can’t really do that. Only SOPHIE can.

Like, of all the artists who could have a posthumous album, SOPHIE is a perfect candidate. Her work always played with physicality and embodiment, the ways in which the artificial makes us real, and the idea of transcendence.⁸ A SOPHIE release from beyond the grave almost makes perfect sense for her. I feel like if Benny really wanted to sell me on this whole “vision” narrative, he should have gone above and beyond and taken more creative liberties with the album and the rollout. But Benny is not an artist: SOPHIE was. It's clear that he just got access to the files, thought they sounded sick, and wanted to put them out to honor his sister.⁹ There is nothing wrong with that on the surface, but it invites us to have a conversation about what constitutes “respect” for her legacy. And yeah, idk if publishing a double album worth of demos and calling it “the last album” really does that. To me, it feels like this was much more about Benny convincing himself that he has “honored” his sister than it is about actually fulfilling her artistic vision. 

But again, I'm just a fan. I can't sit here and pretend I know what SOPHIE wanted. As her immediate family member, Benny might have more insight into her vision than I do. But as an artist, as a fan, and as someone who takes her craft very seriously, idk. I can hear it in the music. Something is missing from this posthumous release. That something is SOPHIE herself. No matter how you feel about this “last” release, it’s worth taking the time to reflect on what her life and what it really meant.

1. A chance to see the empress with no clothes on, so to speak.

2. On top of that, HEAVEN SUSPENDED exists, which is def closer to this more minimal and less metallic direction, and that sounds more cohesive than this. It’s also shorter. It’s more disciplined.

3. There is even a demo of Whole New World, so we can compare the change in that track between demo and release to the change in Reason Why. The final version was edited for time and had more advanced sound design. It’s so different. Why wouldn’t Reason Why go thru a similar evolution if it was getting prepared for release? Benny did barely any changes. Just some EQ-ing it looks like.

4. And before you all yell at me, yes, the “official” does sound better mix wise, at least in terms of space and frequency response than the 2019 demo. At the same time, the bass feels a bit more dynamic in the demo tbh. The track is also faster, which is fun, but SOPHIE loved making slow music. I just think she probably would have tried to conserve some of that high end energy for the final release. Also the mix would be clearer.

5. And also, yeah, in electronic music the producer

6. I think the silence from Charli and AG speaks volumes. If this was really what she meant, why weren’t they involved? They didn’t even tweet about it.

7. See the NYT article above.

8. For example.

9. At least, that’s the charitable read of this. Obviously, there are financial incentives at play here, but I’m gonna be honest: I don’t really think its about money. Not for Benny, at least.