Fergal Kinney
, January 27th, 2021 10:25
After cheering up the nation with her lockdown kitchen discos, Sophie Ellis-Bextor takes Fergal Kinney through her 13 favourite albums, from Blur to Madonna, Paul Simon and Fleetwood Mac and musicals
On 27th March 2020, as Britain entered its first lockdown and Boris Johnson tested positive for Covid-19, Sophie Ellis-Bextor launched her livestreamed kitchen discos. These swiftly became a lot of different things to different people. For some, it was reassurance. If Sophie Ellis-Bextor had been having a hard week, then perhaps it was a little easier to stomach that your own week had been tough. For others, it was a way of marking time in otherwise shapeless existences - Friday night had come again and here's Sophie Ellis-Bextor in a catsuit stepping over one of her toddlers. For myself, it was a reintroduction to some of the standout singles of 21st century pop, some of the very first pop music I remember on car radios or at home. Releasing six albums over the last two decades, Sophie Ellis-Bextor has been responsible for some of the standout British pop singles this side of the millennium - 'Get Over You', 'Take Me Home', 'Murder On The Dancefloor', 'Groovejet,' 'Me And My Imagination' – work that ranks alongside Xenomania's writing for Girls Aloud and Sugababes for invention, hooks and fizz, all that delivered with that louche, highly distinctive vocal phrasing just the right side of disengaged.