SOPHIE’s Reinvention of Hyper-pop

She is a breeze of fresh air in industry, but her eclectic and abnormal production continues to divide her from mainstream structured pop music. 

Image credits: Rich Fury/Getty images for Coachella 2019

The 2010s were pierced with an intergalactic soundwave that approached planet Earth. A crescendo of broken harmonies echoed down with a glistening angelic figure following behind. Her name was SOPHIE. Pop music collectively muted that day, and the reinvention of sound was mechanically engineered through SOPHIE’s fingertips — just in time to save the music industry. 

SOPHIE is a revolutionary musician and producer who has become an admirable icon in the music industry for her eccentric, innovative style of production. Her journey as an artist began in the late 2000s with the band Motherland, performing live around the UK and Berlin. In the 2010s, SOPHIE quickly made a name for herself in the European club scene through her experimentation with DJing. She first gained international attention through her dance-pop and techno tracks ‘Bipp’ and ‘Lemonade’, which she remixed in clubs around the UK. The production of SOPHIE’s unofficially released project ‘PRODUCT’ was admired for its originality, using abnormal yet realistic sound effects such as bubble wrap popping, slurping, water droplets, buzzing beetles, and stretching rubber. The originality of this album created a wall of thermoplastic rubber that divided SOPHIE’s music from mainstream pop, inviting listeners to peer in and question the ultimate criterion of pop music. 

SOPHIE’s sophomore album OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES has become revolutionary for its expression of queer identity through its lyricism and eccentric aural production. Unlike ‘PRODUCT’, this project is more stylistically consistent as it experiments with distorted vocalisation and electric production in both the slower-paced stripped-back tracks, and upbeat expeditious tracks — allowing her authentic and personal lyricism to exist dynamically between the foreground and background of the songs. Through these musical aspects, she transmogrified her sound by reshaping her previous electronic-techno club persona into a conceptual reinvention of who ‘SOPHIE’ really is — an ethereal mosaic of heavenly synths, broken pounding bass beats, an experimenter with vocal modification. The exploration of aural production, and emotive lyricism on this album brought a wave of innovation to the pop genre, which significantly connected with queer audiences. SOPHIE’s open-hearted and raw lyrics on the song ‘It’s Okay to Cry’, allowed individuals to appreciate another side of her that she hadn’t shown before. As a transgender woman, she acknowledged the importance of self-exploration and finding comfort in one's own identity through this song — which brought attraction to queer individuals who could relate to her lyrics. Her unique style of music production on these songs allowed her to explore the duplexity of identity through sound — which is novel to the world of pop culture. SOPHIE used a variety of sonically different sounds throughout the album; channelling from hard deep bass, choppy laser noises, and eerie drilling sounds — to celestial piano progressions and raw vocalisation. These original and bizarre production elements are what is innovative about SOPHIE’s pop style — she is a breeze of fresh air in industry, but her eclectic and abnormal production continues to divide her from mainstream structured pop music. 

SOPHIE’s experimentation with electronic-pop production contributed to the formulation of the genre ‘hyper-pop’ –  a relatively new term used to categorise artists who incorporate electronic, experimental production elements into their music. This genre is an evolution of smaller sub-genre pop music categories, including glitchcore, lo-fi trap, bubblegum-pop, hyper-funk, chiptune, and dubstep. These genres collectively experiment with glitchy voice modifications, hard scratchy trap-beats, popping glittery xylophones, and soft transporting synths — sounds that are abnormal to mainstream pop. SOPHIE’s music specifically introduced the use of sound-play to hyper-pop through her use of sampling and recreating the sounds of moving-objects, including the mimicking of bubbles popping, stretched elastic, running water, beaming lasers, and screeching car tyres. Artistically driven through the value of creative expression, the use of this inventive sound-play distinguishes hyper-pop from mainstream commercial hits — an aspect that SOPHIE brought to this genre in an original and aurally innovative way.  

SOPHIE’s reinvention of pop music invited notable artists to collaborate with her, welcoming her to twist and contort their songs through warped underlying beats and electric backing vocals. SOPHIE has produced many songs for both mainstream and upcoming pop artists. A particular artist that heavily admired her deformation of pop norms, was Charli XCX. SOPHIE has produced various songs for Charli XCX, including her 2016 project, ‘Vroom Vroom EP’ and several songs from her two later albums ‘Number 1 Angel’ and ‘Pop 2’. SOPHIE interpolated her production into some of Charli’s hit songs, including ‘Vroom Vroom’ and ‘After the Afterparty (feat. Lil Yatchy)’. The power of SOPHIE’s production is evident in ‘Vroom Vroom’, atmospherically transporting listeners from a quiet bedroom to a car on an open highway accelerating at 180km/h, skimming across cracked asphalt and inhaling the fumes of burning tyres. Charli XCX has evolved artistically and sonically as a musician through her experimentation with hyper-pop production, emerging from her earlier experience in the pop-rock scene. SOPHIE’s influence on alternative pop artists is evident through the innovation and reinvention of musicians, as well as the projects they have released recently, such as Charli XCX’s 2020 album ‘how i'm feeling now’ —  one of her most sonically progressive albums. This album incorporates a range of distorted, auto-tuned vocals that are paired with electronic synths and underlying broken trap-beats. A song that stands out on the tracklist is ‘pink diamond’, which features mechanical, androidly crashing noises that are coherent with the lyricism of being a video-chatting party-girl. The engineered qualities of this track can be compared to SOPHIE’s song ‘HARD’, which similarly plays with a rubbery elastic synth soundboard that is cohesive with a hard bass and glimmery xylophonic sounds. 

Artist and producer of ‘how i'm feeling now’ A.G. Cook has also become inspired by SOPHIE'S electronic and divergent style of production. Though Cook has his own artistic desires, he continues to be inspired by SOPHIE’s musical legacy, which can be seen through his recent release ‘Britpop’. This track introduces an electric chord progression and samples the word ‘Britpop’, underlying it as a rhythmic beat. Through these influences, Cook has also created his own music label, signing many hyper-pop artists that have also had an influential impact on SOPHIE’s legacy. Many artists Cook produces and collaborates with have had a major impact on SOPHIE’s artistic motivations — for example, Cook has produced music for artists including Caroline Polachek and Tommy Cash. Caroline Polachek is another artist that has veered her own musical engineered techniques through the eyes of SOPHIE. Polachek’s track ‘Dang’ incorporates a muffled vocal repetition in its chorus with a hard bass beat throughout the track — which can be compared to similar anomalous hyper-pop elements that SOPHIE’s implements in her production.  It also utilises distorted vocals and sounds that imitate a wobbling metal sheet. Caroline Polachek has previously recognised SOPHIE as an influence to her artistry, dedicating ‘I Believe’ to her after her passing in 2021. 

SOPHIE has cleared a path for upcoming hyper-pop artists through her adaptation of electronic and pop music. Her production style has challenged the expectations of mainstream pop, which admirably influenced artists to follow in her footsteps. The creative motivations SOPHIE had as an artist will forever leave a beauty mark on the industry. The sound of SOPHIE will continue to pave through the music and creativity and that comes with hyper-pop experimentation. Music in the 21st century continues to evolve on SOPHIE’s behalf, and the cultural reset she had on pop music will be remembered through every revolutionary cycle in the music industry.