The Singles Jukebox

Connnn-tro-ver-sy.

[Video][Website]
[6.44]

Leah Isobel: “It’s Okay to Cry” sounds like a mythical place beyond judgment, beyond taste, and beyond fear. It’s a gift that I can put headphones to my ears and hear that place become real. I know it’s probably fantasy, that life can’t be this sparkling or beautiful even when it’s good – Sophie’s voice is manipulated, the synth sounds are proudly artificial, the video’s sky and thunderstorm effects are more surreal than real. And I don’t care. I press play and I see myself standing in the rain with her.
[10]

Hannah Jocelyn: The melody in the chorus is absolutely beautiful, coupled with Sophie’s heartfelt, controlled performance. Meanwhile, the quite literally thunderous percussion and the rising pianos during the climax make for breathtaking, overwhelming listening. Yet in order for a song like this to work, there must be something grounded or more specific than “I saw the magazine you were reading” or “I think your inside is your best side”. A song like Perfume Genius’ “Slip Away” works because of how grounded it is, and where that song’s bridge is just ‘no caressing’, an acknowledgement of the prejudices waiting outside of their love, there’s no such equivalent here. “It’s Okay To Cry” is certainly hard-won and earned, but the lack of reality and the insistent reassurance of that title makes the whole thing feel weirdly unsettling. A song with that title should exude warmth, not chilliness.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The synthesized backdrop overwhelms Sophie’s gulped, tentative vocal, which I assume is the point but constricts the pathos. 
[3]

Mo Kim: Drizzling power balladry disrupted by glitches in the instrumental; uncanny valley orchestra synths and rainstorm sound effects mesh with Sophie’s processed delivery before subtext erupts into glorious thundering text. “It’s Okay to Cry” isn’t so much about the programmed becoming real as much as the programmed leaving cracks on the window screen, and in its gradual build to the short-lived rally against its own odds; it leaves me reeling in a way few songs have this year.
[9]

Ryo Miyauchi: Some of Sophie’s emotional softness was previously obscured by helium-shot vocals and pitched-up, impure sounds. And so was the dilemma: can the wholesomeness told in such processed work be trusted to be fully sincere? Now, her ballad presents the heart of her music so naked, I got to ask twice if such pureness can exist in a world unwelcome to it. She believes in its openness enough to rely on it as the song’s sole hook. Though the end result is almost too soft to provide much to grasp, the dedication is admirable.
[5]

Will Rivitz: Man, leave it to Sophie to make a potentially mawkish piano ballad sound phenomenal. The turbulence of the song’s lower register — both rumbling bass and the trembling of her lower vocals — is the signature Sophie touch here, but the entire thing fulfills the general PC Music mission statement of looking at all kinds of pop through a shattered lens. “It’s Okay To Cry” is probably more approachable than anything else Sophie’s dropped, but it’s fully consistent with the ideology behind anything she’s put out before this — it’s weird pop that clearly comes from a place of love.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Even as someone who dabbled in PC Music long after it was considered ‘acceptable’ to be curious, I’ve never understood the perception that Sophie was much better than their un-official friends in this camp. Certainly they didn’t appear in the interviews or beholden themselves to a certain hyper-surreal exaggeration (oft attributed to cynicism which certainly can apply to a few of the ranks), but sonically I can’t see too much of a gap in quality, nor a divide thematically between their or A.G. Cook’s early works. We just happened to know one was an upper-class rich white man who treated pop bookishly and often attributed it with dispassion whereas the other’s ambiguity allowed us to fill in the blanks and embellish to more positive viewpoints. After all, there was just so little to scrutinize! Nevertheless, the gap has emerged now with Sophie being beholden to their now blinding earnestness in “It’s Okay to Cry” which is actually more hollow than any bitter lampooning could have been. In order to be so forward, Sophie sacrifices any musical identity, speaking from platitudes and the kind of earnest comfort babble you hear from those who are used to treating emotions with the trite, twee quality that’s plagued so much of the modern spirit. Frankly were it not for Sophie’s grand reveal, I’d be hard pressed to weigh if THIS were the gesture of cynical put down and it quite well could be. Ultimately “It’s Okay to Cry” feels like a grossly bleached attempt at purity, and for all its attempts at noble meaning gives you a degraded, threadbare notion of kindness.
[1]

Stephen Eisermann: Prior to finishing this song, I thought to myself, “what a terrific song for people going through major changes – specifically the trans community – to listen to.” I didn’t know who Sophie was, but I was covered in chills regardless. Then, I saw the video… and now I’m wiping my eyes. I will never understand what my trans family feels, but I hope they see me as someone who is as accepting as the narrator in this song is. Weird production choices and all, this is a terrific song.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: Clashing, imposing synth bass squeezes out clinking synths and pulsing piano and crushing, bit deep drums all sweeping under SOPHIE’S humble, embracing coo and exploding in silence.
[10]