‘SOPHIE’ Album Review: Visionary Style, Limited Success

What makes something a SOPHIE track? Is it the crashing Elektrons digital synthesizer kick drums, the bubblegum pink and deadly poisonous instrumentation, or the haunting lyricism of an individual grappling with the nature of their true self — as on “It’s Okay to Cry” and “Faceshopping?” SOPHIE is enigmatic, to say the very least, which makes her latest album — a release finished by SOPHIE’s collaborators following her death by accidental fall in Athens, Greece at the end of Jan. 2021 — a genuine puzzle, but an entertaining and exciting one to listen to.

More than wondering how much of the production is SOPHIE’s incredibly singular vision compared to the attempts to capture it by brother Benny Long and various other artists, ranging from Kim Petras to Nina Kravitz, the question of whether this is a SOPHIE album at all underscores everything.

Only one song, “Intro (The Full Horror),” is solely attributed to the late producer. This singularity stands in sharp contrast to the remainder of the album, where the influences of other artists undoubtedly alter the final product. “Intro” highlights SOPHIE’s total mastery of the soundscape, drawing in a quiet loop of what sounds like dogs barking as a subtle bass line to an otherwise mostly ambient track. Its nuances serve as guides through what feels like a significant journey — a path of transformation through fear.

Despite some adherence to SOPHIE's distinctive electronic style, the eponymous album is decidedly more mainstream overall than SOPHIE's other projects — especially on tracks like “Reason Why” and “Why Lies,” compared to the crunchier distortions of prior SOPHIE pop efforts like “Immaterial” or “Bipp.”

This sonic divergence isn’t necessarily for the worse, though. The simplified style feels less like a watered-down version of the classics and more like a sound modified by outsiders. The album is less subversive, less transgressive— but it manages to still pose similar questions to its listeners. “Do You Wanna Be Alive” demands a real reckoning with sex and sexual gratification, or “an executive export of my translucent infinity.”

Consistently, songs will present self-love and acceptance as radical, using the instrumentals as incisive tools that carve through both the traditional pop ecosystem and a repressive real-world ecosystem. “Elegance” utilizes a heavy, dark instrumental to question whether elegance is necessarily the graceful thing it appears to be.

Transitioning smoothly into “Berlin Nightmare,” another mostly instrumental piece and the second strongest track behind “Intro,” the connection to the conceptual underground is solidified. “Berlin Nightmare” is a wonderfully moody dance/club track reminiscent of “Stress” by the french club duo Justice, while taking a path that is distinctly its own.

Moments like this two-song pairing initially seem like the album’s only sporadic glimpses of cohesion, but on a second and third listen, the narrative structure becomes clearer. “SOPHIE” is not a concept album by any means, but it is interestingly interconnected, capturing the distinctive attention to tone of a solely SOPHIE project while bringing in collaborators to achieve mixed results. Though the emotion between songs may switch on a dime —such as the transition from “The Dome’s Protection” to “Reason Why” — each track’s relationship to the next never feels like a jump. Rather, much like “Intro,” it’s a journey through fear to some place greater.

The first half of the album’s theme of self-love gives way to the love of others — especially in “Always and Forever,” a song that feels as much about SOPHIE as it is by SOPHIE, as Hannah Diamond sings, “Forever and for always we’ll be shining together / And as the years go by you’ll still be by my side.” Yet, there’s a problem: Despite the superficial resemblance, the heart that used to beat through SOPHIE projects is missing.

Virtually every song is imperfect, never quite reaching the heights of the late producer’s older tracks. “RAWWWWWW” and “Plunging Asymptote” feel entirely unfinished and disjointed. The problem isn’t that “RAWWWWWW” functions more as a rap song — SOPHIE produced Vince Staples’s “Yeah Right” in 2017, which feels much more complete. Instead, the album’s tracks (barring “Intro” and parts of “Berlin Nightmare”) just never capture the raw, visceral essence of a SOPHIE song.

So, is this a SOPHIE album? No, it isn’t. But it’s as close as we may ever get to another one. The self-titled project is an approximation, one that manages to evolve with each listen, getting closer and closer to the late producer’s distinctive, enigmatic style — but still continually falling short. It’s a shame that SOPHIE never got to realize the project in full. All that this posthumous piece can do is hopefully introduce a new era of musicians and music lovers to the unique stylings of a visionary artist who died far, far too young.