The reason I bring this up now is not out of some contrarian drive to renege on any praise I ever showered on the sound and ideas of Sophie, PC Music et al., nor from a desire for them to halt production. What I'm concerned with is a wider social trend that points to a troublingly reactionary cultural shift that all these artists have a responsibility to own up—especially when there exists a very real gender imbalance in electronic music production today. At the beginning of this year, journalist Lauren Martin identified a possible motive for the trend in male appropriation of femininity in a quote from repentant UK club producer and Her Records co-owner Miss Modular: "I wonder if men working under female names is them purposefully trying to be anonymous; because of some inherent guilt of being a white male producer, and wanting to present yourself as something else."

This is a crucial point and a key reason why artists like Sophie and A. G. Cook have a duty to be more open about their own identities and the creative roles of the women they work with, particularly as the image they've built on the bodies of said women is starting to pay off big time. As well as QT's high-profile XL Recordings deal, Sophie recently worked with J-pop superstar Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and is rumored to have jumped in the studio with Diplo and Nicki Minaj for a track on Madonna's new album earlier this year.

Once upon a time, A. G. Cook and Sophie represented a post-human genderfuck by obscuring their identities behind a slightly seedy set of imagery that at once fetishised teen girl culture and carried an implicit critique of commodity capitalism. They looked and sounded like the consumerism that dominates society-at-large, where men make the music and women provide the bodies that sell it, except they performed it in the sweaty basement of a DIY punk venue. Now, though, their ascent into the marketable music industry means they will have a hand in establishing the look of Pop To Come, and it looks awfully similar to the look of Pop That Already Is. Perhaps it's time the boys owned up to the fact that they're taking all the girly shit without taking the shit for being girls.