MP3 dildos aside, Product has nothing new to add to the conversation about pop’s relationship to artifice and consumerism
The debut album by the mysterious electronic producer Sophie – actually a compilation of two previously released singles and four new tracks – comes in a variety of formats, and not just the usual download, CD and deluxe vinyl options. According to Sophie’s website, Product has also been released as a variety of objects, purchasers of which get MP3s of the songs as well. The shoes, sunglasses and quilted jacket have apparently already sold out, leaving only one item available: it retails for £50, is described as a “skin-safe, odourless and tasteless platinum silicon product”, and looks suspiciously like what would once have been tactfully called a marital aid.
An artist is releasing his album as a kind of addendum to buying a sex toy. Well, of course he is: Sophie – who in reality seems to be a male, London-based producer called Sam – is an affiliate of PC Music, the label/sub-genre that, depending on your perspective, is either responsible for “some of the most compelling pop music in living memory” or “a vapid art project by a handful of rich kids”. Although signed to the respected dance label Numbers, he co-produced PC Music’s best known single to date, QT’s Hey QT, and shares the label’s interest in sped-up female RP vocals, the bubblegum end of dance music – happy hardcore, Europop, the kind of turbo-powered commercial trance with which the Clubland tours used to fill the arenas of the north – and pop’s relationship with consumerism. There is much layering on of irony, giving interviews in funny voices and spouting of blank-eyed, sub-Warhol aphorisms: he is influenced by “shopping – things prohibited in hand luggage”, and says the name Sophie “tastes good and it’s like moisturiser”.
Related: PC Music: the future of pop or 'contemptuous parody'?
Continue reading...by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian
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