An American Electronic Music producer, Sonohara (real name Sarah Westervelt) got her start in non-EDM territory in 2008 doing things like covers of traditional Christmas songs and playing in rock bands before beginning to create electronic music tracks in 2017. She is perhaps best known for her fusion of electronic music, Punk Rock and Heavy Metal (although as of June 2018 she has begun to shift her sound to Drum and Bass), her extremely controversial comments towards certain musicians, and a tendency to say whatever's on her mind. She is also transgender and is rather outspoken about LGBT issues.
Discography:
- "Kitty" (non-album single, 2017)
- Shadows (EP, 2017)
- Anonymous (EP, 2017)note
- "Cry Baby Tears" (non-album single, 2017)
- Nervous Wreck (2018)note
- "Zeus" (non-album single, 2018)
- Finding Rhythm (2019)note
Tropes related to Sonohara:
- The Atoner: Tweeted in September 2018 that she hated the "childish asshole" she was during the early days of her career and wanted to get better as a person.
- Autotune: For now, surprisingly averted.
- Berserk Button: Never mention cults around her. Pedophiles are also big ones to her too due to "an unpleasant experience I will never speak about". This is a large part of why Melanie Martinez pisses her off so much; she sees Martinez's "Cry Baby" gimmick as a romanticizing of pedophilia.
- Generalizing other music also appears to be one for her, if her response to The 1975's lead singer calling all other bands "uninteresting" is anything to go by.
- Blind Without 'Em: Wears glasses to protect her right eye, as her left eye is 100% blind.
- Darker and Edgier: Shadows was this in comparison to Kitty, and Nervous Wreck was this in comparison to Anonymous.
- Deadpan Snarker: Extremely snarky, but not always deadpan.
- Digital Piracy Is Okay: She doesn't care if people pirate her music, as she views the money from making music a bonus.
- Electronic Music: Initially, she crossed this this with punk rock music and metal. She viewed herself as an "electronic prog rock house-core" artist. As of June 2018 though, she has shifted her sound to Drum and Bass. She's also experimented with Dubstep and Trance.
- Emo Teen: She qualified as this during the Nervous Wreck days.
- Epic Rocking: Virtually everything off Shadows and Nervous Wreck is 4 minutes or more, with her longest song "Crucified" clocking in at just under 9 minutes.
- The Faceless: Played straight for a few months until she revealed her identity in February 2018, about a week after Nervous Wreck was released.
- First-Name Basis: Prefers being called by her first name, "Sarah".
- Genre Shift: "Alive" marked a shift in her sound from the heavily rock-influenced sound of her previous work (other than Shadows and "Zeus") to Drum and Bass.
- A Good Name For An Electronic Song: Lots of her song titles come at the last minute and are completely random and sometimes humorus. Mostly averted by anything from Shadows to Nervous Wreck, though.
- Grief Song: "Zeus" is instrumental, but the song was made as a way for her to express grief over her dog's death.
- Hates Being Touched: Possibly as a result of her Asperger's syndrome.
- Large Ham: Can get REALLY loud.
- Lighter and Softer: Anonymous compared to Shadows. On Nervous Wreck, "Connect The Dots, Unveil The Unseeable", "Rain Down" and "G'day Goodbye" are probably the softest tracks on the album.
- "Alive" shifted her sound to a lighter Drum and Bass sound compared to the punk and metal-heavy influenced sound of Anonymous and Nervous Wreck.
- Literal-Minded: When it comes to this, she can be a female deadmau5 at some points.
- Miss Swears-A-Lot: Tends to curse a lot, especially when she's angry.
- Metal Scream: "Cult" contains one before the drop.
- Nice Girl: If you get on her good side, she is this.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Considers being alone her worst fear, as she is absolutely terrified that if she's left alone for long periods of time her negative thoughts will cause her to be Driven to Suicide.
- Self-Deprecating Humor: Too many examples to list. She enjoys making fun of herself that much.
- Shout-Out:
- Durarara!!: "Connect The Dots, Unveil The Unseeable" is taken from a line in the anime. Heck, her stage name is taken from Anri Sonohara!
- Powerpuff Girls Z: The working title of Nervous Wreck was "Momoko", also the track name "New Townsville".
- Stage Name: Her stage name is Sonohara, her real name is Sarah Westervelt.
- Take That!: 5 Seconds of Summer and Halsey are the target/butt of a lot of Sonohara's lighter insults. If she's going for Black Comedy, Dahvie Vanity and Melanie Martinez were frequently the subjects, though Sarah has pretty much ceased mentioning Martinez, possibly due to her mellowing out...for the most part. However, she continued making Dahvie the butt of everything, and after unsettling revelations came to light about him, she basically made it one of her life missions to send Dahvie to prison.
- Her hatred for Melanie Martinez had gone up to eleven judging from some old Twitter posts pertaining to Martinez as the subject. It went to
Crosses the Line Twice levels at one point, with Sarah joking about wanting to resurrect Charles Manson to "dispose of" Martinez. She later declared in August 2018 that it "wasn't one of my proudest moments". - Rita Ora briefly became her new favorite target (other than Melanie) after the song "Girls" came out, with Sarah frequently calling her things such as her fans' "meth mouth queen". After the "Girls" controversy died down, she stopped making Take That!s towards her.
- The 1975's Matthew Healy briefly drew her ire in August 2018 after declaring that all other bands were "uninteresting".
- Her hatred for Melanie Martinez had gone up to eleven judging from some old Twitter posts pertaining to Martinez as the subject. It went to
- Troubled, but Cute: Where do we begin with this girl?
- What the Hell, Hero?: Her response to XXXTentacion's death was met with some controversy. She apparently fully expected backlash for it, though.
