Sophia Stel’s the greatest album of all time album cover
Confidence is contagious. Seeing someone so confident in their work, their art, their life, will infect you—you will no longer second-guess your words, your brush strokes, your decisions. Sophia Stel’s confidence on her debut album, the greatest album of all time, is no exception to that contagion.
It might be easy for Stel to fall short of the expectations set upon herself in the album title. But through the 12-track album, she makes a case for the work she’s done and shows just how effortlessly this comes to her.
It’s not unearned confidence for the Vancouver native: her first EP, Object Permanence, allowed her to open for A.G. Cook in 2024; in 2025, she released her second EP, How To Win At Solitaire; recently, in 2026, she opened for Lorde on the Ultrasound World Tour before releasing the greatest album of all time.
The aforementioned artists clearly have had a massive impact on Stel’s own work, whether it be A.G. Cook’s gorgeously produced soundscapes or Lorde’s often simplistic language for describing her feelings. Perhaps the best example of this influence is “Better Believe It,” a track with gorgeous piano hits and simplistic lyrics describing the ways Stel is trying to come to terms with wanting someone and letting go of her self-destructive mannerisms.
The album is full of punchy yet subdued tracks; Stel isn’t afraid of getting blood on her hands, but also is maybe pulling her punches a bit. The production of the tracks emits some sort of power that Stel holds, yet the lyrics, upon closer inspection, hold a more desperate longing for someone else. Maybe, in the end, the blood is her own.
It could be forgiven if you missed some of those more intimate moments on the record, when Stel drops the facade of confidence and lets us in on her insecurities. They linger throughout the album, but they’re there, clear as day, if you dig a little deeper; each show of confidence comes with a nagging feeling that there is something deeper under the surface.
So when Stel finally sings, “can’t stop, I guess I’ve been jaded, from losing my whole life,” on track three, “Like a Kite,” it hits like that much more of a gut punch. Once you pull back the curtain, you can’t undo it—the curtain can’t be closed now that Stel has stepped into the spotlight.
In the first half of the greatest album of all time, though, she tries, building up a confident persona as she sings on the standout single, “Bitches Talk Shit,” “my bitches party rock and look good in only socks, and they don’t know a thing about you.”
Yet, immediately after, on “Better Believe You,” she starts to come to terms with the fact that all she wants is this person. As the song fades out, she repeats “I just want you” over and over again. From there, she drops the persona completely and shows just how desperately head over heels in love she is.
On “Wedding Song,” Stel sings about how lovestruck she is over a dreamy interpolation of “Canon in D.” Halfway through, she convinces herself that the person might not reciprocate these feelings of intense love, but ends it admitting that she likes this song, and wants to stay forever.
As the album winds down, Stel still has one more punch to get in. On “Power,” the confidence is back in full force as Stel writes about coming to terms with her own niche celebrity status. The most memorable lyric on the entire album lives in this Rihanna-esque beat: “They call me gay, but I’m a fag.” Stel isn’t afraid to correct others when they spit in her face; her power and confidence returns as she returns to her anthemic roots.
All of this is to say, even the most confident of us, the ones who appear to be so sure of their own destination and personal identity, can still have some deep insecurity hidden underneath the surface. Perhaps that makes them even more powerful, that they can bear their insecurity and share it with the masses, open to judgement but never afraid.
You can stream the greatest album of all time on the streaming platform of your choice. You can also preorder the CD/vinyl direct from A24’s website here.