Jonny's Weekly Musings - Jan 29 - Feb 4

There were a couple of small releases this week from Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij and Julien Baker but sadly that is not our main story. No quirky GameStonk squeeze or feel good Bernie meme this week as the avant-pop groundbreaking artist/producer Sophie died last Saturday after a tragic fall in Greece. Sophie was an absolute pioneer in a genre that would soon turn into hyperpop and had massive influence on artists from Charli XCX to Rihanna. It is truly difficult to explain the massive influence that Sophie has had in the evolution of modern pop. Her discography is slim only consisting of a compilation from 2015 and a feature length album from 2018 called Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides. Quite a outstanding and enigmatic title. Her reach as a producer is much wider and an equally important part of her story. I have compiled (with great help from twitter) a pretty exhaustive playlist of all of Sophie’s music that she made and produced and it gives a more holistic image of her influence.

I thought it would be cute and interesting to go through her catalogue and review/discuss her life’s work. Honestly the first thing that jumped out of me when making this playlist was that Sophie produced the absolute hit “Bitch I’m Madonna” by Madonna featuring Nicki Minaj. This song kind of blows and gives me this vibe:

After her first successful batch of songs that included “Bipp” and “Lemonade,” this track was the start of her success as a songwriter/producer (as Madonna is kind of a big deal). “Bipp” is great and everything but what really started Sophie’s rise is her collaborations with Charli XCX. Now as you all know. I am a Charli fan (WHORE) and through her and Sophie’s music I feel that they had a great back and forth. All of Charli’s music that I absolutely love has the distinct harsh electronics that Sophie is famous for and Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides borrows a lot from Charli. This union started shortly after “Bitch I’m Madonna” when Charli had Sophie on to produce Vroom Vroom. The gravity of this is insane. Though Vroom Vroom is a short 4 song EP, it is easily one of the top 20 projects of the 2010’s. I think my brain expanded and got 10 times as curvy the first time I listened to this EP. I unlocked the next level of existence in a sense. That is how good I believe these songs are. On the surface it really just seems like the normal hip-hop inspired hoes and Ferraris aesthetic but when you take your handy dandy shovel and dig a little bit deeper… It is still only about those things but you know that’s besides the point. The music is what slaps so hard on this album. The production. A lot of the stuff off of 2015’s Product I thought was a little too out there for me. The electronics were too robotic or just too monotonous and so when it came out I was like meh. But Sophie seemed to mature from that era to Vroom Vroom and the electronics are so much more rhythm inspired and voluptuous.

Another pillar in Sophie’s producing discography came a little before Vroom Vroom. After Product, which is more avant-electronica than anything else, she produced a song with some friends called “Hey QT.” This singular song is the genesis of the entire hyperpop genre. Instead of being in a more pensive space, “Hey QT” takes the harsh electronic vibe that Sophie is so great at and makes it more mainstream. The vocals being this kinda anime, pitched up voice definitely influenced 100 gecs, Charli, and even Frank Ocean to implement these odd vocals in their music. The song gets a bad rap of being the musical equivalent of the annoying fairy from Ocarina of Time. Simply repeating lines over and over, but there is charm and a lot of depth to the electronic production.

The final triad of in Sophie’s opus is her debut album. When this came out in 2018 I was very aware of it as it was garnering an insane amount of praise on music twitter etc. I listened to it a bit and honestly thought it was a bit much. My brain was very smooth at the time. This was before I had discovered Vroom Vroom which was a turning point obviously in understanding this album. The harsher parts of this album that was more emblematic of her earlier music was a big turn off for me. After I had turned my brain on though, I realized how fantastic this album is. It had both the avant-electronic kind of spacy and weird sounds that she built her career on and the more pop oriented Vroom Vroom adjacent sound. “Ponyboy” and “Whole New World / Pretend World” represent the older Sophie. “Ponyboy” is loud and rough and kind of reminds me of Magic Mike for no related reason while “Whole New World / Pretend World” is an absolute odyssey of electronic ambiance. Crazy stuff. The pop side is represented by songs like “It’s Okay to Cry” and “Immaterial.” The latter has a real “Vogue” by Madonna vibe and the former is just a soul crushing ballad. Re-listening to this album this past week has given me a new appreciation for how much of a beautiful mash up of Sophie’s two prominent styles of music production it is. It also makes me sad that it took her death for me to fully encapsulate and appreciate the music she made. Anyways did someone cut an onion? I hope that we can remember her beautiful impact on pop and electronic music for years to come.

Sad Jamming :)