Next week sees the release of the self-titled final album by the British artist and producer Sophie, who died in 2021, aged 34, after an accidental fall. In the years prior to her death, Sophie had gone from underground darling to genuine alt-pop star, thanks to her ability to fuse, through generational talent and sheer will, the immediacy of pop with a futuristic vision of experimental music. When she died unexpectedly, slipping while trying to gain a better view of a full moon, tributes poured in across the musical spectrum, from Rihanna and Vince Staples to Arca and Flying Lotus – a breadth of adulation that could only have been earned by someone who had touched the mainstream and the underground.
Posthumous albums are a dime a dozen, and often cash-grabs by opportunistic labels or management teams, but Sophie is, at least to some degree, a complete statement. It’s a bittersweet final transmission from an artist whose textured, avant garde style had an outsized impact on the way pop sounds today – her epochal Charli xcx collaboration Vroom Vroom led to an era of pop that was faster, louder, sexier and sillier than before. Sophie’s work with Charli totally reinvigorated the latter’s career, turning her into an underground favourite and priming her to vault back into the mainstream with this year’s Brat. That record, which defined the summer, features two tributes to Sophie: the line “I wanna dance to Sophie” on Club Classics, and the song So I, about Charli’s complicated, distanced relationship with the producer.
