She’s one of the most recognisable names in disco-pop, and yet Sophie Ellis-Bextor has only just stopped worrying about her career.
“I think for so long, every album I made, I’d think, ‘This is another metre on the plank,'” she tells Zan Rowe for Take 5.
“It’s only really been in the past five years where I’ve thought I can just relax, that I can keep doing the thing I love.
“There’s been a few elements in the last five years that have stopped me worrying if I will be lucky enough to always be a singer.”
She admits it “sounds a bit ridiculous” given her career has spanned four decades and eight studio albums.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor completed her first proper headline tour of Australia in February. (Supplied: Jordan Munns)
Listen to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Take 5
Beyond music, Ellis-Bextor is a fixture of the UK’s celebrity ecosystem. She presents a BBC radio show and has authored a cookbook and memoir, Spinning Plates, named after her long-running podcast series in which she interviews working women “who also happen to be mothers.”
These endeavours have stabilised the singer’s insecurities, but there’s another key element: the resurgence of her 2001 disco-pop anthem Murder on the Dancefloor.
Revived by its use in the climactic scene of Emerald Fennell’s 2023 black comedy Saltburn, Murder… became a worldwide smash all over again, reaching the pointy end of the charts in Australia and the US, and matching its 25-year-old peak of #2 in the UK.
It was also a viral hit for Royel Otis after the indie-pop duo covered it for triple j’s Like A Version.Â
The song’s second life was “super exciting”, but it also sparked feelings of anxiety for Ellis-Bextor.
“It was like getting onto a carousel and then finding out it’s actually a big dipper.”
Ellis-Bextor was grateful, but as Murder… reached younger audiences and risked boxing her in as a nostalgia act it raised questions.
“Is this OK? Is this what I want? Does it tally with all the things I had planned? How do I make it tessellate with the stuff I care about? How do I manage that with family life?
“Sometimes a little bit of worry about it is natural. But you can only really take stock of the here and now. What have I got going on today? What can I prep for? And that’s helped me stay a bit more grounded.”
An armchair psychologist might observe that Ellis-Bextor’s worries stem from her start in an unforgiving business, where her first flash of success was followed by disappointment.
From Britpop to discotheque
London born and bred, the teenage Ellis-Bextor was a self-described “indie kid through and through”.
An avid Britpop fan who’d frequent indie club nights, she went from poring over weekly music magazine Melody Maker to ending up on the cover when, at 17, she successfully auditioned (via a bunch of Oasis tunes) to be the face and voice of British rock band theaudience.
Despite the band’s self-titled 1998 debut achieving a modest buzz on the charts and with British music press, it was dropped from its label after a year.
“It was horrible because I couldn’t think of anything else I could do,” Ellis-Bextor says. “I felt like I’d peaked and fallen and it was over so quick.
“I’m 20 and I’m going to be this tragic person for the rest of my life who talks about the time I had a record deal in my teens and then it all went away.”
In hindsight, however, she views it as a net positive that built her resilience.
“I think it gave me everything I needed because it was like this little crash course in so many things.
“It crystallised that I wanted to be a singer no matter what. It wasn’t something I only wanted to do when it was laid on a plate.”
Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Take 5 songs:Sylvester — You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)Madonna — Express YourselfGeorge Michael — Freedom! ’90Sigrid — Mine Right NowPrince — Let’s Go Crazy
The premature failure of her indie-rock ambitions inadvertently led to the beginning of a long relationship with dance music.
In 2000, Ellis-Bextor fronted Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love), a sleek, international house hit from Italian producer Spiller that was the first track to be played on an iPod.
Initially, she rejected the track. (“Why has anyone sent me this? I’m an indie singer,” she once told Double J.) But quickly backflipped, realising the song was “giving me back my day job”.
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“Whilst I was feeling quite like an outsider, I was also incredibly grateful and quite sober about the opportunity to do what I loved. I was like, ‘I’m not gonna waste this.'”
The track’s global success jump-started a solo career, introducing Ellis-Bextor to a whole new musical universe.
“Dance music was completely alien. So, my way of finding my way in was to go back and look at the songs that were being sampled. And the storytelling, because I always wanted to hear, ‘What’s the singer talking about, what’s happening in this world?’
“That’s when I went back and started listening to disco. So, it was quite late, really.”
Maybe so, but Ellis-Bextor was a fast learner.
A savvy fusion of ’70s disco and ’80s electronic pop, her 2001 debut album Read My Lips shifted big numbers in multiple countries, buoyed by singles like Take Me Home, and, of course, Murder on the Dancefloor.
Embracing midlife milestones
During the COVID lockdowns of 2020, Ellis-Bextor lifted spirits, including her own, hosting weekly Kitchen Discos live on Instagram, with wholesome cameos from her musician husband, Richard Jones, and five sons, aged between six and 21.
Sashaying around in glamorous outfits at home belting out originals and covers rekindled her love for pop-friendly disco and dance music.
She began writing what would become her eighth studio album, Perimenopop, which returns to the sound that cemented her fame 25 years ago.
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From the playful title down to its irrepressibly hooky contents, Perimenopop is a total party. Its wall-to-wall bangers come from someone proudly championing their midlife and how much time has passed.
“I think it’s good to toast the years that you’ve accumulated,” Ellis-Bextor declares. “The experiences, the relationships, [what] you’ve learned, the evolution of all that.
“It’s wonderful to go into each chapter of your life armed with information and break down taboos. I’m all for that but I also want to feel good and excited.”
In a historically sexist industry that has fetishised youth and threatened older women with irrelevancy, it’s a deeply refreshing listening experience.
“As a woman there’s a lot of dark stuff about this time in our life. And it’s nice to hear a joyful exploration of that,” Ellis-Bextor says.
“I don’t want to pretend it hasn’t been 25 years since I released my first album. I’m actually kind of into it.”
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Rather than merely capitalising on the momentum of the Murder renaissance, Perimenopop dovetailed with Ellis-Bextor’s instincts to return to “four on the floor” after three albums exploring other styles.
“It was very serendipitous. It was always the plan that this would be a pop-disco record. But thanks to what happened with Murder…, I could really write a wish list of people to work with and then totally exploit what came out of it,” she chuckles.
That included Chic mastermind Nile Rodgers (Diamond In The Dark), Norwegian pop sensation Sigrid (Glamorous), and a squad of songwriter-producers who between them count Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo and Sugababes as clients.
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It is the first record Ellis-Bextor has made where she “was making music in the here and now but also looking backwards because of Murder on the Dancefloor”.
“That’s what started the cogs turning, looking back and enjoying and engaging with that. But also not feeling like I have to pick up the baton from then and keep running.
“It’s OK to leave that 22-year-old me there and take over the rest of it from here.”
Now 46, the optimistic mother-of-five is overlooking the knocks and is happier than ever with the present, and whatever might come next.
“I’m starting to think about new music,” she reveals. “I still feel very driven. I think I’ve got to keep going on that tip, really. I like being busy.
“It’s funny because there’s been a few moments in my career where I can feel a shift, which is beneficial because it means when it happens again, you feel that little bit more sober. Because otherwise it makes you feel like you’re just a little drunk all the time,” she laughs.
“I wanted to stay business drunk, not really drunk.”
Perimenopop is out now.
Hear the full Sophie Ellis-Bextor interview with Zan Rowe on the Take 5 podcast and ABC Listen app.