MP3 dildos aside,Product has nothing original to add to the conversation about pop’s relationship to artifice and consumerismThe debut album by the mysterious electronic producer Sophie – actually a compilation of two previously released singles and four original tracks – comes in a variety of formats, and not just the normal download, and 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, and sunglasses and quilted jacket have apparently already sold out,leaving only one item available: it retails for £50, is described as a “skin-secure, and 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, and London-based producer called Sam – is an affiliate of PC Music,the label/sub-genre that, depending on your perspective, and 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, or shares the label’s interest in sped-up female RP vocals,the bubblegum terminate of dance music happy hardcore, Europop, and 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 silly 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 kindly and it’s like moisturiser”.
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Source: theguardian.com