If you were to open your notes app and pour everything in it into a song, the result would probably be terrible. When Canadian artist Sophia Stel does it and adds a few synths on top, it’s a banger. Perhaps that is what talent really comes down to. The second artist—and the first woman—to sign to A24 Music has just released her newest record, the greatest album of all time. Its cover shows a younger Stel, looking as innocent and sweet as the little dead goat she’s holding. Her songs carry that same naive, sweet, yet harsh sound of someone discovering life’s biggest truths (for example, that bitches talk shit).
Stel’s first EP, Object Permanence (2024), caught the eye of A. G. Cook, who invited her to open for him, and earned her a co-sign from Troye Sivan, who shared one of its songs on Instagram. Her second EP, How To Win At Solitaire (2025), cemented the buzz, and this year she opened for Lorde on the final leg of her Ultrasound World Tour. Now part of A24 Music’s catalogue, the Vancouver singer-songwriter has delivered a first album that sounds like a party and a film at the same time.
Raised in a religious household with her parents and ten siblings, Sophia has been through it all. After listening to pop music for the first time at seventeen, she made her way towards the life she wanted. the greatest album of all time reflects the complexities of newfound fame, the difficulty of navigating an unfamiliar world and the doubts that come with it. Starting with a dense but short song like On My Dick, these topics surface quickly: Stel doesn’t get the hype around her, but at the same time, she rejoices in it and considers it well-earned. The title of the album describes this contradiction. After giving an interview, the singer saw that the journalist had worded the Instagram carousel as if Sophia had said she was making “the greatest album of all time.” Already troubled by impostor syndrome and pressure, Stel thought, why not, and went with it, later stating that this cockiness helped her cope.
Moving on to Molly In The Club, the singer’s crying-in-the-club vibe becomes clear. Another important motif in Stel’s music is the omnipresence of the party. Throughout the album’s almost forty-seven minutes, we’re at a big party where emotions fluctuate between melancholy and euphoria: a metaphor for how newfound fame feels, like a big night out, with its wildness, excitement and, sometimes, emptiness. On Like A Kite, she sings: “And I don’t wanna stop / Now I can’t fall in love if I try / It’s more confusing than the clouds in the night.” Such bare emotion reminds us of Troye Sivan’s new record, She’s the Best, and, of course, of The 1975’s characteristic synthesisers and reflective lyrics.
In one of these attempts to use cockiness as a coping mechanism, Bitches Talk Shit is a dance-floor-worthy electronic diss track that shows how the singer experiences the contrast between the world she was raised in and the one she lives in now. Expectations, people-pleasing and money surface again, but this time not on sad terms. Instead, they come on an angrier note that leaves no space for contemplation: bitches talk shit and that’s it. Maybe there’s no need to listen to them anymore.
Better Believe It brings romance to the table while still navigating the confusion that growing up entails. Is anything worth it? Is anything even real? Love becomes the answer: “All of my reasons / Yea they’re safe with you / My gasoline yea / The reason I move.” It’s not fame, money, music or bitches; it’s love, apparently. On another raw note, I’ll Walk is a song about making a path for yourself, even in a place you find strange (like LA). Perfect for working out, I’ll Walk turns into a hymn to staying true to yourself and your goals: “All the doors are heavy in LA / I think it’s strange here / No one walks / You book an Uber for my pain.”
I Do and Wedding Song pick up on the fountain-of-youth feeling that artists such as Lorde have been praising lately. Reminiscent of the New Zealander’s Virgin, an ode to growing up while still being young, these electric tracks can make anyone want to headbang next to the DJ. With a you-only-live-once vibe but some sad undertones, they confirm the cinematic tone of the record, making it a soundtrack for anyone in their late twenties. Power and its indie-sleaze-fuelled music video bring back the feeling of going out wearing your best attire and on the right set of drugs. “I’m clearly made for having fun” is a lyric one could get tattooed at twenty-three and, honestly, no one should regret it.
The party continues until we reach the dreamy Burn, a nod to living fast and leaving a beautiful corpse, like the 27 Club. Serving as the closer, the song finishes the album on the same note it started with: pure swagger. “Need more life I’m suicidal / Need more time I’m twenty seven / Getting close I’m smelling heaven,” sings Sophia, invoking death. Maybe it’s just the death of the party, of the night, since she’s already twenty-eight now.
So, is it the greatest album of all time? Probably not, and Stel would most likely be the first to say so. But that was never really the point. Behind all the cockiness, there’s a girl from a religious household who listened to pop for the first time at seventeen and is now partying her way through fame, trying to figure out what’s real and what’s worth it. The answer, apparently, is love (and maybe a few synths). the greatest album of all time is a night out you don’t want to end, even when you know the lights are about to switch on. And if believing it’s the best thing ever made is what got her here, honestly, who are we to tell her otherwise?
