Music producer and songwriter SOPHIE’s death in 2021 was an incalculable loss for popular music.

As one of the pioneers of a new, experimental sound in electronic pop music often referred to as hyperpop, contributions to the field span from Charli XCX’s groundbreaking “Vroom Vroom” to Vince Staples’ far-reaching sound on “Big Fish Theory.” 

She even released a studio album of her own, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, featuring flashy synths, gunshot percussion samples and beats suitable for a Blade Runner 2049 rave. Her second studio album, SOPHIE, was released posthumously on Friday.

SOPHIE’s brother Benny Long helmed the task of understanding her yet-to-be-completed tracks, but the results are less than promising.

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From the very beginning, it’s clear that SOPHIE changes course from Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides. The glistening, intergalactic sound of her previous album has been switched for a dark, brooding miasma. It starts strong with her characteristically loud, processed production, but soon fizzles out as the tracks drag on. 

Many are nearly five minutes in length — far too long for songs that were formerly incomplete and still sound that way.

“Berlin Nightmare” crashes right out of the gate with an intense, bubbling techno beat perfect for a midnight party in a burned out factory. The track wanders as it continues, receiving no help from the bare minimum vocals performed by Evita Manji, who featured on the track.

The album spotlights other artists and doesn’t have a single song with vocals from SOPHIE herself — whose vocal performance on Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides are a highlight of the debut album. Some song’s vocal features even feel destructive, like in “Elegance.” For nearly five minutes, “elegance” is repeated by artist Popstar. The production is not good enough to sustain such an elementary vocal track. 

It begs the question, how unfinished was this album before release?

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The final songs Buddy Holly recorded before his infamous death feature significant overdubs and have a similar manipulated quality that resembles much of this album. At least for Holly the added overdubs polish some of his tracks, such as the second version of “Peggy Sue Got Married,” featuring a ripping 50s guitar solo.

But the songs on SOPHIE do not share these same benefits. They’re unfinished backing tracks and hollow shells of what was to come but never did. And unlike the Holly songs, the additions from Long and other artists do nothing to make the songs more listenable. Is this what SOPHIE would have wanted?

Listeners should question the ethics of releasing unfinished tracks after an artist’s death, because the songs will never reach the artist’s original intentions. It’s impossible to know how many of the unfinished songs SOPHIE would have actually released.

High points of the new album lie in the final three tracks, “Always and Forever,” featuring Hannah Diamond, “My Forever,” featuring Cecile Believe and “Love Me Off Earth,” featuring Doss — they’re a return to form. 

Kicking off with club-influenced sounds and lyrics that seem to memorialize SOPHIE, the album ends on a high note and gifts a tender send off to a visionary artist who forever changed popular music.