“Pop Music Should Be Good Again” Sofie Royer Interviewed
The title of Sofie Royer’s third album, ‘Young-Girl Forever’, nods to ‘Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the YoungGirl’ by Tiqqun. This text essentialises the figure of the young girl, embodying her as the essence of marketability within capitalist society. The incredible irony has been the commercial response to ‘Young-Girl Forever’ – drawing attention to Royer’s gender, age, and her relationship to being that very ‘YoungGirl’.
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Expanding beyond temporal sensibilities, Royer’s latest explores perennial synths and pushes her songwriting capacities across multi-lingual expressions. Cross-referencing film, art and music within the sonic world of ‘Young-Girl Forever’, the record is a glimmering execution of artistic expression at its most playful – but beyond that, the record is also undeniably clever.
“I love a good reference, and I love finding hidden messages in art or music, so this is my way of trying to do that,” Royer explains the songs were already completed when she conceptualised the record’s name. “I didn’t intend for it to be so deep, like I didn’t realise I’d have to be confronted head on with a lot of these things. A lot of these articles make mention of my age, saying she’s only 33, or she’s already 33.” Cigarette in hand, Royer walked me through the conception of her latest record, as well as the conversations that arose following its release. “I think one thing that I do want to reiterate – people are getting very hung up on, like, something specifically age-related, or an actual young girl, but I think the exciting thing about the book is that this character transcends gender and age. It’s just a figment or a product of the early forms of marketing and capitalist society. Tiqqun states that you’re either marketed at products by a young girl, or they’re for a young girl. And that is the most desirable commodity of the capitalist market.”
Despite an incidental thread of capitalist critique, ‘Young-Girl Forever’ is not so much a comment on capitalism as it is a mirror up to Royer’s creative and curious mind. The record delves into themes of artistic longevity, female artistry, and belonging – but also resonates with Royer’s intellectual passions. With a bachelor’s in education, Royer studied psychology, philosophy and English. Most recently, she studied painting at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, on which she shares, “I think we really live in a culture at the moment where everything has to have a message. Even better if that message is political. Even better if that message is really explicit and easy to transmit. It’s so on the nose sometimes, and I really, really tire of that.”
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For Royer, she wanted to make a body of work that was enduring, inquisitive, and, to put it simply – enjoyable. She draws reference to the likes of Elliott Smith and Todd Rundgren, sharing, “the reason their music still has this ineffable quality today is because their music wasn’t necessarily temporally based. I don’t know if they always made the most popular music for their time, but they made songs that had longevity.” Royer’s aim for ‘Young-Girl Forever’ was to create a sonic world that would age with the listener, but one that was also fun and upbeat; “What makes you want to listen to a song for ten years? I definitely don’t have the answer to it, but it’s something I keep in the back of my head when I arrange and produce my songs.” She shares further, “I also don’t think I’m making subversive music, in terms of aesthetic choices. I think there’s so much ability to subvert within the pop field already, which I hope I do. If you think about it, pop used to be so mind-blowing, and there’s some really great artists making great pop records now, but there’s also a whole lot of noise. I just think pop music should be good again.”
Where Royer’s previous records ‘Harlequin’ and ‘Cult Survivor’ delved into personal anecdotes and shone in its specificity, this record embraced ambiguity and sonic experimentations. Royer shares this allows the songs to breathe new life into its live iterations; they’re also more enjoyable for Royer to exist with long after the writing process. “I just wanted to play with ambiguity a lot more on this album, and for me personally, that gives the song more longevity. It’s less room for me to have a bad time on stage. Maybe it’s selfish, but like, I just wanted to be able to have more fun. The crowd has the most fun when you’re having the most fun. You can’t pander too much.” Experimenting with unconventional production plug-ins, writing songs on different instruments, and playful sonic textures – this record has represented a technical milestone for the artist.
Much of the conversation that has arisen post-release surrounds Royer’s proximity to being the ‘YoungGirl’. I had to point out this irony, as well as the heavily gendered implications of this criticism, to which Royer wholeheartedly agreed, “that’s exactly it, and it proves the whole theory that what people are most interested in, and what people are able to market, is [the young girl].” She continues, “There was a really funny article in an Austrian newspaper – it was maybe the first negative criticism I had of the album – it was a totally click-bait headline in a very liberal newspaper. It basically went on to describe me as an influencer, and said the album referencing the text was supposed to be critical of consumption, but that I was still asking people to consume my music. And I was like ‘wow, you totally missed the mark’. Here’s someone who wrote a headline to garner the most interest or clicks, criticising an “influencer” critical of consumption. Like, that’s a paradox. Besides also totally discrediting the fact that I’ve been a musician for 30 years of my life. It really proves the text’s points.”
Royer shares that she has since dropped out of painting at the University of Applied Arts, citing this very disconnect between juggling the worlds of politics and art, “I actually don’t know if I’m so wildly interested in institutionalizing painting. Painting was one of the things that really brought me joy, and I don’t know if I have what it takes to be an artist right now in the art world.” When it comes to her music, Royer mirrors that philosophy, and chooses to take a step back from that conversation. “The fact that we’re supposed to be living in a very non-binary day and age, the conversation around politics presents it as if there’s always a clear right and wrong, and I’m like, can’t you people see the whole system is fundamentally flawed?” To Royer, the arts is a provider of escape, and the idea that arts should be political is something she’s been grappling with. “I think in the arts we’re constantly operating at a very pawn level. To me, that’s no different than the hegemony where a ruler would use the arts to propagate their ideas and their message, and I don’t want to be a part of that.”
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On arts being another vessel for politics, she shares, “it’s just something I ask myself, and I try to remove myself from.” It is unintentional, then, that Young-Girl Forever became such a conversation starter about women in music, capitalism, and modern consumerism. When I asked her how she felt about that, Royer laughed and shrugged, saying, “I’m kind of pleased because I do think it signifies there’s legitimate interaction with the project beyond just an indie scale, so that makes me excited.”
On the clear influences across other art forms and intellectual sources, Royer describes how film inspired her music videos, and how art inspired her writing. “My lyrics are full of references that, if you want to make use of them, you can. In ‘Babydoll’, I reference this artist called Jamie Wilde, and one of my favorite songs is dedicated to one of my favourite directors, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who did some of my favorite movies, including the Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. I think if you listen, it’s literally just references. But I like to keep a sense of ambiguity too. I want people to be able to interact with the music, have their own imagination and play things out – rather than have a really descriptive song about something very specific. Because where’s the fun in that?”
Diverging from the philosophical what’s who’s and why’s, Royer’s relationship with her art is a personal one. While it may be starting conversations and invoking certain emotional responses elsewhere, she reiterates that music is her own escape, and her means to create – on her own terms.
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‘Young-Girl Forever’ is out now.
Words: Rachel Min Leong
Photo Credit: Jasmin Baumgartner
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