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Sophie — news, coverage & facts — IJR

2017–2021: Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides

In October 2017, Sophie released "It's Okay to Cry", her first new material in almost two years. The music video for the song was the first time Sophie's voice and image were used in a release. She subsequently opened up to the press about being transgender. Later in the month, Sophie also debuted in live performance, premiering newly recorded songs from Sophie's second album with vocal performances by Cecile Believe. The single "Ponyboy" was released with a self-directed music video on 7 December 2017. The third single from the album, "Faceshopping", was released on 16 February 2018 with a music video on 4 April 2018.

On 3 April 2018, Sophie announced via Instagram that the album was complete and that it would not be titled Whole New World as previously thought. On 1 May 2018, an interview with Crack Magazine revealed that the official album title is Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides. It was released on 15 June 2018 by Sophie's own label, MSMSMSM, along with Future Classic and Transgressive. The album prominently featured Sophie's own vocals. In early 2018, it was revealed in one of Sophie's tweets that she had contributed to and produced Lady Gaga's latest album. In a video posted on social media, when asked, Sophie said: "Yes. I mean whatever, you know. I work on a lot of different things. If it comes out, then it's cool. You can never tell. But she's a really cool person."

In July 2018, Sophie revealed work on four new projects, including a newly released debut album, which were all going to be released that year. Sophie said, "I have the next one finished... I'm going to release four albums this year". In an interview with Lenny Letter, Sophie said that she had done so much collaborating with other people that, "Basically, I've done a whole new album in the last two weeks." When asked to clarify whether this was a comment on EPs or albums, she stated that it would be "a mix". She had also been working with Kim Petras, Charli XCX, and Bibi Bourelly on new material within the year, as well as some rap collaborations in addition to the confirmed Lady Gaga collaboration.

At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides was nominated for Best Dance/Electronic Album, and Sophie made history as both one of the first openly transgender artists to be nominated in this category and one of the three first openly transgender women to be nominated for a Grammy. During a red carpet interview at the ceremony, she confirmed work on a remix album of Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides. In July 2019, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides Non-Stop Remix Album was announced as part of an exclusive 3-CD set that included the original Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides album as well as a clutch bag featuring its artwork. The remix album was later released as two videos on YouTube on 29 July. Sophie featured on the September 2020 single "Metal" by Jimmy Edgar.

In January 2021, Numbers announced a new single release pairing a remix of "Bipp" by Autechre with the Product-era track "Unisil"; Sophie had previously stated that she wanted "NO remixes" of her music "unless it's Autechre" and called them "my heroes." The single was released two days before Sophie's death.

Sound and image

AllMusic wrote that Sophie's "sophisticated, hyperkinetic productions" feature a "surrealist, blatantly artificial quality", typically making use of "sugary synthesiser textures, and beats drawing from underground dance music styles" as well as "experimental sound design" and feminine vocals. The Guardian likened her style to if "Aphex Twin had swallowed a 12-year-old girl's Spotify account. Playful, synthetic pop music – songs about love, or just as often, fizzy drinks – pared back to an austere digital minimalism; sounds so crisp and trickly, they sounded like CGI for the ears. And yet for all its foregrounded artifice, Sophie's work spoke of heartache and yearning; of human connection." The New York Times described Sophie's work as "giddy fun, but [...] also an invitation to consider pop's pleasures, structures and gender expectations, and pop's commercial status as both a consumer item and an emotional catalyst." Pitchfork credited her work with "mold[ing] electronic music into bracingly original avant-garde pop". Variety and The New York Times described her work as pioneering the 2010s style known as "hyperpop".

Sophie primarily used the Elektron Monomachine synth-sequencer and Ableton Live workstation to create music. Apart from vocals, Sophie created original synthesised sounds from the elementary waveforms by using the Monomachine, eschewing the use of samples. Likening the construction of a track to building a sculpture out of different materials, she synthesised sounds resembling "latex, balloons, bubbles, metal, plastic, [and] elastic". Tiny Mix Tapes described her production as "liquid metal or maybe the noise equivalent of non-Euclidean geometry". Sophie told Billboard that the genre of music she produced was "advertising".

Sophie's early visuals came from a series of colourful images described as "Homemade Molecular Cooking", with the singles' cover art often depicting objects made from plastic or other industrial materials, an idea that originated from discussions with John Roberts, a fellow electronic musician.

Legacy

In February 2021, a petition was launched on Change.org asking NASA to name the exoplanet TOI-1338 b in Sophie's honour, gaining over 95,000 signatures. Fans of Sophie noted that artist's impressions of the exoplanet released by NASA that year aesthetically resembled the cover art of Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides. Though the planet was not renamed, the International Astronomical Union announced on 16 June 2021 that the asteroid (10026) 1980 RE1 was given the permanent name Sophiexeon.

On 4 June 2021, Sophie's brother Benny Long announced plans to release some of her unreleased work. On 21 June 2024, a video was uploaded to Sophie's YouTube channel titled "@MSMSMSM_FOREVER", containing an hour and three seconds of silence and listing dates and times around 24 and 25 June in five different time zones. Three days later, it was announced that a posthumous self-titled album, produced by Sophie and Benny Long, would be released on 27 September via Transgressive and Future Classic. "Reason Why" featuring BC Kingdom and Kim Petras was officially released as a single. On 18 June 2025, Numbers rereleased her PRODUCT compilation as a 10 year anniversary including 2 new tracks "Get Higher" and "Ooh".

In March 2022, Charli XCX dedicated her album Crash to Sophie. Caroline Polachek's song "I Believe", which deals with ideas around immortality and legacy, is inspired by and dedicated to Sophie. "Sweetest Fruit", from St. Vincent's 2024 album All Born Screaming, opens with an ode to Sophie. Charli XCX's Brat (2024) also includes "So I" that is "a knotty exploration of her grief about SOPHIE". A. G. Cook's song "Without" expresses dealing with the loss of someone you love and interpolates Sophie's "Bipp" within the outro. At the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, Sophie's former collaborator Kim Petras became the first transgender artist to win the award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance; during her acceptance speech, she credited Sophie for paving the way for her. While accepting her British Dance Act award at the Brit Awards 2025, Charli XCX mentioned Sophie in her speech, among other artists she had been influenced by, calling Sophie "someone who none of [them] would be [there] without".

On 17 September 2024, a Google Doodle commemorated what would have been Sophie's 38th birthday. An accompanying video uploaded to YouTube Shorts, titled "Celebrating Sophie Xeon", uses her track "Immaterial" from Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides. On 1 June 2025, a Google Doodle commemorated the hyperpop genre, in which it mentions Sophie.