Secondhand Setlists

Pop producers have a knack for songs that sound laced with sugar, making them feel like a guilty pleasure.  SOPHIE makes the most decadent of all, hopping up rhythms with pure happiness and helium, resulting in some of the best dance music possible.
Sporting wavy hair and a jacket that seemed inspired by Missy Elliot’s own iconic garbage bag, SOPHIE filled the El Rey with songs that sound like if the Powerpuff Girls took up raving on the side. She may as well have thrown pop rocks upon the floor, for people could not stay still upon it. Favorites like “BIPP” and “Hard” moved the masses for sure, but “Vyzee” marked the moment where the audience lost it entirely.

Here to assist SOPHIE was Charli XCX, Charlotte Aitchison, who’s begun shifting her pop sensibilities towards SOPHIE and the PC Music collective sound. She prowled across the stage in an outfit that can only be described as a lovechild of Catwoman and Frank from Donnie Darko. Her punk-pixie theme resonates well with SOPHIE’s own manic-cherub sound; by the closing number, “Paradise,” they’d  launched the dance floor into a stratosphere of cuteness & chaos. I even got an unasked-for but not unwanted kiss from a stranger, so here’s to PC Music being the great unifier!

This is the type of show that demonstrates how hard pop music can go when taken to the point of explosion, the same as adding too much sugar to your Lemonade. After a certain point, it’s no longer simple, smooth or sweet: it gets hard.