Though we’ve lost our romanticism around conceptualizing the future (the singularity is nigh, y’all), I can think only one thing when listening to SOPHIE: if scientists from the 1950’s were able to time-travel to 2014, “Lemonade” is exactly what they’d expect popular music to sound like. Dirty, beauty-from-ugliness tracks that stand as monoliths, simultaneously annihilating and celebrating traditional musicality with electronics and enigmatic sexuality.
Since the rise of UK grime, pop music is becoming less linear. Mainstream tracks now typically have two or three conflicting movements, resulting in sounds that play like drugged up reinterpretations of dance floor classics. “Lemonade” is this trend’s absurd summit, in the best way. The juxtaposition of SOPHIE’s charisma and talents as a vocalist against the barrage of his “fuck you” production is both off-putting and life-affirming. With SOPHIE there is no safety net – poles of familiarity, sure, but nothing makes sense if you come to his tracks relying on what you knew. This is the future. Let’s start acting like it.
