musician behind ‘Clueless’ soundtrack hit was 66

Jill Sobule, the singer-songwriter behind the trailblazing ode to queer love “I Kissed a Girl” and “Supermodel,” the signature tune from the Clueless soundtrack, has died. She was 66.

Sobule died in a house fire in Minneapolis on Thursday morning, her team noted in a statement shared with Entertainment Weekly. She was scheduled to perform songs from her Drama Desk-nominated musical F— 7th Grade on Friday at Swallow Hill Music’s Tuft Theater in Denver; an informal gathering will instead be held in her honor. Fans are encouraged to “join their fellow Jill friends and fans to share a story or song.”

“Jill Sobule was a force of nature and human rights advocate whose music is woven into our culture,” Sobule’s manager, John Porter, said in the statement. “I was having so much fun working with her. I lost a client & a friend today. I hope her music, memory, & legacy continue to live on and inspire others.”

Her longtime attorney, Ken Hertz, shared, “Jill wasn’t just a client. She was family to us. She showed up for every birth, every birthday, and every holiday. She performed at our daughter’s wedding, and I was her ‘tech’ when she performed by Zoom from our living room (while living with us) during the pandemic.”

Born in Denver in 1959, Sobule released her first album, Things Here Are Different, produced by the legendary Todd Rundgren, in 1990. It would take another half-decade for the musician to gain a foothold in the cultural consciousness. Her 1995, self-titled follow-up contains the two songs still largely considered her signature hits, “I Kissed a Girl” and “Supermodel.”

“I Kissed a Girl” playfully chronicles the flirty relationship between two women and broke new ground by becoming one of the first explicitly queer songs to chart in the Billboard Top 20. Sobule told Entertainment Weekly she didn’t “feel precious” about the song when Katy Perry’s own song of the same name took over the pop charts in 2008, but admitted to getting “tons of e-mails from annoyed fans.”

“Maybe I’ll write a third ‘I Kissed a Girl’ for fun…. It will be about how I kissed her, Ieft the dull boyfriend, got gay-married in California, and really no one gave a s—,” she joked.

“Supermodel,” which concerns a young girl’s dreams of fashion fame, was originally written for inclusion in the soundtrack to the 1995 classic comedy film Clueless and was later collected on the album Jill Sobule. “Supermodel” breaking out as one of the primary hits from the soundtrack was a feat, considering it played alongside songs by artists like Beastie Boys, Radiohead, and Counting Crows.

Sobule released eight more studio albums, five EPs, two live albums, and the compilation I Never Learned to Swim: Jill Sobule 1990–2000.

In recent years, she successfully pivoted to musical theater, writing and performing in the autobiographical coming-of-age musical F— 7th Grade, which earned Sobule a Drama Desk nomination for Best Musical in 2023.

The original cast recording of the musical is due out June 6, alongside a special 30th anniversary version of her self-titled album.

A formal memorial celebrating Sobule will be held later this summer. The musician is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, James and Mary Ellen Sobule; nephews Ian, Matthew, and Robert; and several cousins.