Sophie's final album is a touching tribute, even though it can't capture all that she was

Having all of your music in one place is the great convenience of the streaming age. Gone, nearly, are the days of stacks of CDs or myriad MP3 files scattered across hard drives. Almost everything is on Spotify or Apple Music or Tidal or what-have-you for a monthly subscription fee. There are exceptions, of course, in the more experimental corners of music and the internet, that live among Boiler Room sets on YouTube and SoundCloud rappers. Sophie, long before but especially after her death in January 2021, is one of those exceptions. 

Following a series of singles and production credits, Sophie truly broke through with 2018’s The Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, her debut album that would tragically become the only full-length to be released in her lifetime. But fans know there is so much more of her music out in the world, much of it residing on SoundCloud as low-quality recordings played at live sets—the producer’s ideal way to have people interact with her music. “Your body feels the intention more than your mind analyzing intellectually too much,” she told Interview magazine in 2017. “That’s what really excites me—the idea of communicating on some kind of bodily, fundamental, energetic level.” 

It is unfortunate, then, that there is little option, at least so far, other than to analyze SOPHIE, the artist’s self-titled posthumous work, intellectually. Billed as the final Sophie album, the project was close to completion when the artist died unexpectedly. But a lot of what’s here has been floating around the internet and dark clubs for years. Lead single, “Reason Why,” featuring Kim Petras and BC Kingdom, was leaked online in 2019 and Sophie played it live thereafter. The challenge for listeners now is becoming acclimated to the official version of a song they may have already been listening to for five years. It’s now more polished, yes, but it’s also a little slower, pitched a bit lower, and overall more deliberate. There’s a sense that the song has been vacuum-sealed to take home with you, without the club atmosphere of the ripped version.

Of course, this isn’t that unusual in and of itself; two of Sophie’s most beloved collaborations with Charli xcx (“No Angel” and “Taxi”) both have multiple, slightly different versions, with defenders of each. But there’s an obvious weight placed on a posthumous release, an album that almost certainly wasn’t supposed to be an artist’s final project, full of decisions that may or may not have been made without the artist’s input. That’s not to say SOPHIE feels exploitative—the project was clearly crafted with care and with the input of her brother and close collaborator Benny Long—but there is a flattening to the music that can make it feel more like a museum exhibition than a call to move your body. 

The second track, “Rawwwwww,” for example, has been kicking around the internet for at least four years, and it sounds like it, with a melody reminiscent of the trap-pop that dominated 2018 and 2019. Yes, Sophie’s severe production does elevate it beyond, say, Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings,” but for an artist who is still a pioneer in electronic music, that any of the material feels dated is unfortunate. “Exhilarate,” while actually improving on the original demo with slick, rubbery burps that recall her Product singles, feels similarly like a relic from the era of Sia-written ballads. (For what it’s worth, Sophie praised Sia on the record in 2015.) 

But there is plenty here worth the preservation effort. “Live In My Truth,” a previously unheard track (as far as this writer is aware), is an immediate standout, brimming with the kind of madcap energy we’ve come to expect from a Sophie track. “Always And Forever” (another new one) and “My Forever” see Sophie team with two frequent collaborators in Hannah Diamond and Cecile Believe, respectively. They don’t reinvent any wheels, but they’re more of a good thing. Two people who knew her continue to speak her language—a most hopeful sign that the sound will continue to grow and evolve, even if the artist can’t be there every step of the way. 

Sophie’s music has never felt set in stone. It’s plastic, in the best sense: moldable, fluid, refusing to break down or decompose. This is an artist who wasn’t even that interested in the album as a form for a long time, so it’s unsurprising that this one doesn’t fully work as a final word on such a short but prolific career. But it’s not the final word, and not just because there are “hundreds” of tracks in her archive, according to her brother. There is a generation of artists inspired by her work who are starting to receive the mainstream adoration that wouldn’t have been imaginable a decade ago. (The fact that Petras won a Grammy with a song that was so shamelessly inspired by Sophie is hugely legacy-affirming, in this writer’s opinion.) SOPHIE may be more of an exhibition than a concert, but we should be so lucky to have it regardless.