Who is Sophie Xeon and why is Google paying tribute to the icon today?

Pioneering producer Sophie Xeon (known as SOPHIE) has been honoured arsenic the taxable of a Google Doodle contiguous connected what would person been the icon’s 38th birthday. 

The location leafage of Google shows a cartoon depiction of the creator – implicit with the trademark reddish hairsbreadth the shaper became known for – and features a video honouring Sophie.

The abbreviated clip features Sophie’s opus Immaterial, which includes lyrics like: ‘I was conscionable a lonely miss / In the eyes of my interior kid / But I could beryllium thing I want.’

The opus plays implicit a moving animation of the creator blasting disconnected into the stars. 

Considered 1 of the founders of hyperpop and among the astir influential producers successful the past of popular music, Sophie tragically died successful 2021 aft an accidental autumn from a gathering successful Athens but near down a affluent legacy. 

For those unfamiliar with Sophie’s lasting power connected music, the adjacent of Brat Summer (an medium upon which the shaper had immeasurable influence) is simply a cleanable clip to larn the basics. 

Who was Sophie Xeon?

The shaper – who was trans and preferred not to beryllium referred to by immoderate pronouns, according to representatives – was an autodidactic instrumentalist who archetypal began making euphony arsenic a young kid successful Glasgow, Scotland.

In the 2000s, Sophie moved to Berlin, helmed the dance-pop radical Motherland, and became immersed successful the city’s physics and creation euphony scenes. 

There, the innovator honed the futuristic, otherworldly dependable that became synonymous with the moniker SOPHIE. 

Following a drawstring of collaborations and releases, Sophie’s azygous Bipp broke done the sound and earned the shaper captious acclaim and a rapidly increasing fanbase connected autarkic sites similar SoundCloud. 

Sophie archetypal collaborated with Charli XCX successful 2015, gathering the foundations of what would go a long-lasting and fruitful creator concern that lived connected beyond Sophie’s life. 

Sophie produced galore of Charli’s songs, including Vroom Vroom, After the Afterparty, Paradise, Trophy, Roll with Me, Lipgloss, Out of My Head, No Angel, and Girls Night Out.

The shaper lone released 1 workplace album, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, successful June 2018, which earned a information for champion dance/electronic medium astatine the 2019 Grammy Awards and made tremendous waves successful the popular world. Sophie was lone the 3rd trans femme successful past to beryllium nominated for a Grammy. 

The medium offered a dependable truthful marque caller and unfamiliar that galore recovered it alienating, but for those capable to spot the vision, Oil was an astounding accomplishment that blew the ceiling disconnected the possibilities of popular music. 

Pitchfork remembers the medium with due grandiosity: ‘By complicating the naturalness of the quality dependable and corrupting established popular structures, SOPHIE besides complicates the expected naturalness of gender, which has ever been inextricable from music. Her enactment is simply a sphere wherever volition and impulse instrumentality precedence implicit destiny and legacy.’

Sophie’s dependable is unwaveringly self-aware, intentionally subverting and occasionally exploiting popular cliches and patterns to make a marque caller flavour of pop. The shaper viewed euphony arsenic textural and architectural, often likening projects to ‘latex, balloons, bubbles, metal, plastic, [and] elastic.’

Following this success, Sophie continued to enactment with Charli XCX andcollaborated with artists similar Nicki Minaj and Madonna arsenic well, pushing the unmistakable dependable of Sophie into mainstream pop.

In 2022, Charli XCX dedicated her medium Crash to their precocious collaborator, but Brat, the popular star’s deed 2024 album that launched her to a caller level of fame, stands arsenic the truest monument to Sophie. 

Not lone is the electronic, synth-heavy dependable overtly referential to Sophie’s work, the opus So I is astir the precocious producer. 

In the song, Charli sings: ‘Always connected my caput (Every day, each night) / Your prima burns truthful agleam (Why did I propulsion you away?) / I was frightened sometimes / You had a powerfulness similar a lightning strike.’

The lyrics continue: ‘When I’m connected stage, sometimes I prevarication / Say that I similar singing these songs you near down / And I cognize you ever said, ‘It’s good to cry’ / So I cognize I tin cry.’

Since the producer’s death, fewer of Sophie’s philharmonic works person been made public. Notable releases see the Jlin collaboration ‘Jsloipnhie’ and productions for Hyd and Basside, but its precocious been announced fans tin expect a posthumous SOPHIE medium soon.

The self-titled medium from the creator was archetypal hinted astatine with a cryptic video connected the icon’s YouTube channel, causing galore to speculate that caller euphony was connected the way. 

Now that the medium has officially been announced, a azygous called Reason Why featuring BC Kingdom and Kim Petras has besides been dropped to the delight and daze of fans. 

Sophie’s household announced the medium connected June 24 with a moving connection that reads: ‘When we, Sophie’s family, took our archetypal steps towards bringing this task to fruition we contacted the beloved friends with whom she envisioned the album. We wrote, “We person been uncovering comfortableness successful the euphony Sophie near us, it is simply a acquisition that we genuinely cherish arsenic we effort to find a mode forward, with Sophie everlastingly astatine the halfway of our worlds.”’

As Charli XCX continues to predominate the euphony satellite with rubbery popular sounds that are arsenic danceable arsenic they are intergalactic, fans proceed to mourn the nonaccomplishment of a shaper who everlastingly reshaped the possibilities of pop, adjacent to this day.

Got a story?

If you’ve got a personage story, video oregon pictures get successful interaction with the Metro.co.uk amusement squad by emailing america [email protected], calling 020 3615 2145 oregon by visiting our Submit Stuff leafage – we’d emotion to perceive from you.

MORE : Google is deleting Gmail accounts — here’s however to support yours

MORE : Surprising Mercury Prize Award 2024 victor revealed successful affectional outpouring

MORE : AI tin present make video games arsenic Google teaches it to marque Doom clones