September 17, 2024, would have been hyperpop legend Sophie Xenon’s 38th birthday. Just over three years after her death, Google has put her in the spotlight internationally on its “Doodle” on the search engine’s homepage—hopefully, a chance for folks to discover or rediscover her music, which seems more prescient than ever.
That’s internationally, though not globally – USA is meant to be registering to vote. But it has hit multiple continents, and you can see all the content from anywhere, via the Google Doodle blog:
About the Celebrating Sophie Xeon Doodle
It comes with this charming video –
That then links to a Google search page. (Hey, there’s also DuckDuckGo, if you prefer!)
A posthumous album, reportedly nearly complete at the time of her death, will see release later this month, so in case you missed that news over the summer, Google’s got your reminder. There’s already this single out – and it’s breathtaking:
https://sophie.ffm.to/exhilarate
Seeing Sophie live once was absolutely stunning. The one chance I caught her in Berlin, one of the more powerful pop acts I can recall – a blast of raw energy. The work may have been underappreciated at the time, amidst a swirl of trending pop experimentation. Now it seems prescient, a course set in songwriting that had both the scale and timbral gloss of modern pop but a personal, emotional rawness at the same time. And to anyone who says modern pop can’t be “sophisticated” or achieve heights in songwriting, listen to this a few times – this is a natural evolution of popular songwriting’s lineage fused with complex phrasing, form, and approach to sound design that simply didn’t exist a generation back. This 2021 release already sounds like 2024, and then some.
Pitchfork has more details plus another single premiere (with BC Kingdom and Kim Petras) from June. Sophie’s brother and studio manager, Benny Long, finished production on the upcoming release, titled simply SOPHIE.
Of course, we can still go back to the classic hit, which if you listen to the melody and lyric could sit alongside Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman – without in any way being regressive or nostalgic, just on writing craft, 21st-century ear candy aside. (Not everything needs a middle eight, kids.)
Sophie’s fight for her singular musical vision and identity alike also ring out today. Madeleine Aitken at Detroit’s Honeysuckle did a good job of saving the receipts on ways in which Sophie was a trans icon and the target of transphobia, including from other prominent artists. Maybe best to let Sophie put that in her own words – as she told Paper, “For me, transness is taking control to bring your body more in line with your soul and spirit so the two aren’t fighting against each other and struggling to survive.”
Ah, well, I’m back to finishing class notes for the semester and future generations of producers. There’s still plenty to listen to here, while we wait on the album drop.