SOPHIE’s Music is a Stark Reminder of What is Needed in Pop Music Today: Ideology.
The late artist’s profound sense of purpose may be a model for a new way of doing pop. May SOPHIE’s beautiful soul rest in peace.
When public people pass, a strange mix of melancholy and guilt often arises. Remembrance shifts to consumption of their lauded work, and then towards renewed passion. Finally, some shitty form of regret: “Why didn’t I cherish this while they were still here?” This was the case for me and SOPHIE, the enigmatic pop producer, solo artist, and mastermind behind the PC music group who passed away tragically last Saturday in Athens at the ripe age of 34. PC music and SOPHIE sought sonic extremity and energy at all costs, often in the form of synth laden power pop that sounded like a cross between a war of dueling balloons and rave music. Add a layer of revving chainsaws, the blearly euphoria of MDMA, and you might get closer, but not quite, to an accurate description. Relistening to SOPHIE’s music, I am struck anew. Here is pop music that has intention, framework, method. Here is pop music that is ideological.
The perplexity of SOPHIE’s music never felt too weird to appreciate because across all of it, there was a tangible thread. The surprisingly bright chorus in the middle of the murky, attitudinal “Vroom Vroom” sung by Charli XCX and produced by SOPHIE feels like it’s part of the same aesthetic project as the moving, synth-orchestra chaos of SOPHIE’s solo piece “It’s Okay To Cry.” In some difficult-to-name, but very much present way: there is a motivating idea behind it all. “Ideological” here denotes an overarching aim, a conceptual sturdiness to SOPHIE’s music, a sturdiness that is conversely lacking in so much of pop music today.
Much of “experimentation” in contemporary pop music is about distillation rather than creation. This music may claim ideology or motivation as it sets its sights towards a specific goal of achieving a certain sound, but high brow mimicry performed with a 21st century glimmer is not indicative of a grand ambition; it’s a goal with a limited aim. For example, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia has been praised for its suave execution of merging disco with 21st century pop. Anne Gaca called it “a collection of sophisticated, hard-bodied pop-funk” for Pitchfork, her language rightly amplifying the competence of its execution rather than the import of its offering. Lipa’s success hinges on the way she can effectively modernize old sounds and styles, not in how she can genuinely move contemporary pop music forward into new sonic and thematic realms.
A similar dynamic played out with Miley Cyrus’s glam-rock-inspired offering, Plastic Hearts, that also came out this year. The album, whose promotion was largely powered by Cyrus’s undeniably satisfying, if not fresh, take on Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” trafficks in the older, grimier sounds of glam rock. It also builds in safety precautions for contemporary listeners by pairing vintage sonics with the ear-candy-led songwriting style of streaming era pop music. Our serotonin is still jacked up as we get that big chorus before the first minute of each song.
It seems that Lipa, Cyrus, and many other contemporary artists have decided that the domain of style and sound has been so thoroughly trod, that it is best to pay tribute, contemporize old sounds. Put on the sonic equivalent of an IG filter. But what motivates this work beyond a specific affinity for past styles alongside a utilization of contemporary music technologies?
In his book Ghosts of My Life, the late critic and theorist Mark Fisher wrote “PR and populism propagate the relativistic illusion that intensity and innovation are equally distributed throughout all cultural periods . . . those who can’t remember the past are condemned to have it resold to them forever.” He is rejecting clean myths of infinite, future facing improvement, and towards a more sober recognition of the distinct differences between times. Tied to the notion of the inevitable progression of styles and innovation is an implicit acceptance of the present. We are resold the same shit with a new sheen, and accept it as new because it was released last month.
To remember that old childhood rule: “we get what we get and . . .” But what if you do get upset? What if you become unbridled in your questioning, more exacting, more curious? I believe we need to demand more of our contemporary pop music. We need to demand that the sounds that populate our life be motivated by something beyond an immediate ambition of stylistic execution. It’s time we ask: What are these sounds striving towards? What ideas motivate them? Why?
Which brings me back again to SOPHIE. SOPHIE’s “why” was clear. In a 2015 Rolling stones interview, SOPHIE said the following:
“I think all pop music should be about who can make the loudest, brightest thing. That, to me, is an interesting challenge, musically and artistically. And I think it’s a very valid challenge – just as valid as who can be the most raw emotionally. I don’t know why that is prioritized by a lot of people as something that’s more valuable. The challenge I’m interested in being part of is who can use current technology, current images and people, to make the brightest, most intense, engaging thing.”
There is a thrill in reading an artist so self aware and secure in their own project. SOPHIE, in a clear eyed intention to reach brightness, loudness and engagement, happens upon a sound that was and is still, completely thrilling, challenging, satisfying. With a goal that can never be objectively reached, SOPHIE gets somewhere different. This is distinct from the goal of a Lipa or Cyrus, whose intention of modernizing past styles can be clearly achieved or not. But when the goal is a fleeting criteria, when the work is informed by a sturdy ideology, “make the most engaging thing possible,” the sounds and sights deployed will naturally bring one to new domains of style.
Contemporary pop needs more SOPHIE’s. Not those that mimic SOPHIE, or even strive towards the same subjective goals, but who have clearly stated intentions that can move the fleeting, messy work of creation towards some indefinite end.