In 2019, Anne Helen Petersen published her widely shared BuzzFeed essay, “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation”. It examined the exhaustion of a generation expected to thrive in every area of life while taking on more debt, enjoying less security, and working harder for increasingly uncertain rewards. Even basic tasks could become insurmountable as the promised returns on all that effort slipped further from view.
The new album from British artist SOFY reads like a musical sequel to the article. This time, though, we follow a zoomer trying to build a satisfying adult life, with the added chaos and disillusionment that comes with pursuing a music career. Across the album, professional frustration, emotional fatigue and self-sabotage are woven into tight, anthemic indie pop songs as she fashions life-affirming choruses from the daily grind.
Opening a record with a song called “40 Minute Masterpiece” may seem like a gutsy move. However, after repeat listens, it becomes clear that it is a much darker commentary on how low an artist might stoop in the quest for commercial success. Over a simple drumbeat and atmospheric guitars, the track foreshadows the musical template she uses throughout—inviting melodies with something less comfortable lurking underneath.
The fizzing “DooYaa” is a sparkly slice of indie pop that eases its way into the subconscious. Jangly, Cure-esque guitar lines frame her wonderfully apathetic delivery as she takes aim at nepo babies and details the everyday struggles of being an independent artist. Anthem-in-waiting “Wishbone” could well be the standout on an album packed with them. It’s a perfectly executed alternative rock song that crams in enough ideas for five songs, with layers of new wave guitars building to the kind of chorus you find yourself bursting into unexpectedly in public places.
The self-deprecating title track, “How to Perform Magic”, finds her joking about her ability to ruin anything good in her life: “I’m a magician, and for my favourite trick, I’ll ruin everything!” It’s a refreshingly honest and bleakly humorous take from someone struggling to get their shit together, and anyone from any generation can relate.
“Cashmere” sees her add shuffling trip-hop rhythms and walls of atmospheric synths, all topped off with Britpop guitars. Lyrically, she picks holes in her illusions of happiness as she tries to mask emotional fatigue: “Don’t look so close / You’ll see the cashmere covering my eyes / But I kinda like what I see.” Here, the emotional burnout begins to take its toll as she tries to keep up the pretence of living the capitalist dream.
The laid-back melancholy of “Headlock” recalls 2000s megastar Dido, with subtle electronics over circling acoustic guitar, while “Saturation” mines the same era but with an even stronger sense of space. Again, her emotional fatigue is beautifully summarised in the simple line “If I could have everything / I’d still feel nothing.” For all the album’s big choruses, these quieter moments leave just as much of a mark.
Anthemic rocker “Jealousy’s a Fever” goes full-on leather with wailing guitars and pounding drums, while “Nintendog” is much more laid-back, with chilled-out trip-hop beats and washes of synths. It finds SOFY wistfully remembering simpler times, listing classic mid-2000s British cultural touchstones to capture a deeper sense of longing: “I kinda wish they’d bring back Topshop / Everything was fine / When all I wanted was Nintendogs.” It’s a hugely relatable paean to carefree times when life was a little more straightforward.
Musically, “50/50” takes the listener back even further as she mixes in classic 1990s house. It’s a glorious ode to finding the good in any situation, suggesting there might still be something worth taking from it if you change your perspective: “You made it rain on my birthday / Then all the daffodils grew / How lucky am I to feel the water in my shoes.” In the context of the record, it’s refreshing to hear her finally find the positives.
How to Perform Magic‘s themes thread together beautifully on the acoustic closer “Alligator”. Finally, she seems to have a grip on past anxieties: “Your big teeth don’t scare me anymore / I’m an alligator”, as if she’s finally realising it is possible to outlive your fears. After everything that comes before it, that small shift in confidence ends the album on a reassuringly hopeful note.
With stadium-sized choruses carefully woven from 1990s indie, trip-hop and alt-rock, How to Perform Magic makes the messy business of getting your life together sound hugely relatable. SOFY’s wonderfully dry delivery and self-deprecating humour give the record its character, as she articulates the precarious nature of adulthood with a breeziness that adds to the charm. Adulting might be a work in progress, but musically, SOFY is the real deal.