| Sophie | |
| Type: | Studio |
| Artist: | Sophie |
| Cover: | Sophiealbum.png |
| Alt: | The album title in stylized, squiggly capital letters backed by darkness and monochrome magenta laser lights. |
| Released: | 25 September 2024 |
| Label: |
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| Prev Title: | Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides Non-Stop Remix Album |
| Prev Year: | 2019 |
Sophie is the second and final studio album by English recording artist and producer Sophie. It was posthumously released on 25 September 2024. Her brother, Benny Long, took the lead in finalizing its production after her death. All of the tracks, excluding the first, have a featured artist.
Five singles preceded it, starting with "Reason Why", and followed by "Berlin Nightmare", "One More Time", "Exhilarate" and "My Forever", spread out one month apart.
After Sophie's unexpected death in 2021 from an accidental three floor fall at the age of 34, plans of releasing her unpublished works were discussed. In June 2021, her brother Benny Long considered the possibility of a posthumous release of her planned follow-up to her debut album, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides, stating it "just needed finishing touches".[1]
According to Long, the album was nearly complete at the time of Sophie's death.[2] The track list was "roughly sketched out" by her. As a longtime studio engineer of Sophie, Long completed the album. Their two sisters were also involved in the process. For most of the songs, features such as arrangements and production had already been prepared. Some songs needed minimal mixing and mastering, while others were somewhere between sketches and demos. Extensive discussions with Sophie guided him in determining the direction each track should take.[3] [4]
On 21 June 2024, Sophie's YouTube channel and a new social media account titled "@msmsmsm_forever" uploaded a series of videos and posts teasing an announcement on 24 June 2024.[5] [6] When the teased date arrived, the lead single from the album, "Reason Why", featuring Kim Petras and BC Kingdom, was released alongside an announcement of the posthumous self-titled album to be released in September that year.[7]
On Instagram, Sophie's family posted a statement regarding the album.[8] [9]
The album released on streaming services two days early on 25 September, following the premiere of a six-minute video showcasing interviews from the album's collaborators.[10]
Rolling Stone wrote that the album was "full of wildly inventive bangers" and "set[s] a new bar for other musicians to leap over if they dare." The Guardian characterized the album as "dense and unpredictable, never settling into the easy rhythms of a post-death tribute", highlighting that while posthumous albums are often cash grabs by opportunistic labels or management teams, Sophie's release stands out as a more "complete statement". MusicOMH thought the album was "a fitting addition to her legacy". For DIY, it was "more commemorative than conclusive - a welcome celebration; an answerphone message revisited." Drew Gillis of The A.V. Club described it as "a touching tribute, even though it can't capture all that she was".[11] Similarly, Jesse Dorris from Pitchfork called it a "bittersweet, difficult to pin down, and an unusually safe statement from one of the 21st century's great risk-takers", while Josh Korngut of Exclaim! found it successful but "not quite a SOPHIE project."
NMEs Alex Rigotti was less positive, opining that "there’s a gnawing impersonality that plagues many of the tracks here" and concluding that "the album doesn’t fully execute SOPHIE’s unique vision."[12] The Quietuss Karl Smith stated that "SOPHIE's absence is most keenly felt in the many gaps on this posthumous guest contributor album", with many hallmarks of her music "dialed down throughout or, in some cases, gone altogether".[13] Slant Magazines Charles Lyons-Burt felt that "without her patented mix of prankish wit and bleeding-heart expressivity to guide the project, [the album] feels more like a ChatGPT recreation of a true visionary's unique brand of pop".[14] Writing for Resident Advisor, Sasha Geffen opined that the "underdeveloped second album reveals just how much of her music's impact came from its finishing details", feeling that the release lacked "the propulsive, dynamic sound of the music SOPHIE shared just months before her death", including her 2020 HEAV3N livestream.[15]
| Accolade | Rank | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bleep | Top 10 Albums of 2024 | 10 | [16] | |
| Rough Trade UK | Albums of the Year 2024 | 1 | [17] |
Credits taken from the vinyl. All tracks produced by Sophie & Benny Long.
Notes
| Peak position | |
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[18] | 73 |
|---|---|
| Date | Format(s) | Label | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various | 25 September 2024 | |||
| 27 September 2024 | [19] |