Watch: Birthday of Late Trans Music Producer SOPHIE Celebrated with Google Doodle

by Kilian Melloy

EDGE Staff Reporter

Tuesday September 17, 2024

SOPHIE performs at Mojave Tent during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival on April 19, 2019 in Indio, California
SOPHIE performs at Mojave Tent during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival on April 19, 2019 in Indio, California  (Source:Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Coachella)

Today, Sept. 17, would have been the 38th birthday of transgender Scottish hyperpop pioneer Sophie Xeon — and Google is marking the day with a doodle in her honor, Billboard reported.

"The Google Doodle is accompanied by a short clip soundtracked by 'Immaterial' from 'Oil Of Every Pearl's Un-Insides,' her sole studio album released in 2019," the music magazine relayed, "and is inspired by her most iconic look and an Elektron Monomachine which was used for her inimitable vocal style."

As EDGE reported at the time, SOPHIE died after falling from a building in Greece in January of 2021. The record label Transgressive released a statement on her death in which they shared, "True to her spirituality she had climbed up to watch the full moon and accidentally slipped and fell."

The producer's legacy lives on in her influence on music and recording artists. "Earlier this year, Charli xcx's 'Brat' feature[d] the song 'So I,' written in response to the grief felt by Charli following her death," Billboard recalled. "The pair worked closely on some of Charli's earlier material including 'Vroom Vroom EP' and 2017 mixtapes 'Pop 1' and 'Pop 2.'"

Billboard noted that a followup album that had been left unfinished when SOPHIE died has been completed "by close collaborators including Benny Long, who has mastering, mixing and producing credits to his name on previous SOPHIE releases." That album, titled "SOPHIE," will drop Sept. 27.

Have a look at the SOPHIE Google Doodle below.


Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.