Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Sophie Ellis-Bextor performing at Astoria on July 28th 2007
Background information
Birth name	Sophie Michelle Ellis-Bextor
Born	April 10 1979 (1979--) (age 28)
Origin	London, England
Genre(s)	Pop, Dance, Alternative Rock
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, model
Years active	1997–present
Label(s)	Polydor Records, Fascination Records
Associated acts	theaudience
Website	sophieellisbextor.net

Sophie Michelle Ellis-Bextor (born 10 April 1979) is a multi-platinum selling English pop singer and songwriter. Her music is a mixture of mainstream pop, disco and 1980s electronic influences.

Biography

Sophie Ellis-Bextor was born in West Middlesex, England^[1] to Janet Ellis, then an actress, but later better known as a presenter on the TV series Blue Peter (on which Sophie appeared with her mother at the age of six, modelling snoods), and Robin Bextor, an award-winning film director. Ellis and Bextor divorced when Sophie was four years old. She has three sisters and two brothers. She has often spoken about being very close to her family growing up and she often takes her brothers and sisters to work with her. Her official website hyphenates her surname, which is the joining of her parents' surnames; some other sources separate the names with a space. She went to school at St. Stephen's School and later Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith. Among her earliest public performances were with the W11 Opera childrens' opera from the age of thirteen.^[2]

An advocate for animal rights, she posed for PETA's anti–fur clothing advertisement.^[3]

theaudience

theaudience.

Ellis-Bextor began her career in 1997, with an indie band called theaudience. She sang the lead vocal in the band. While she was a band member, readers of Melody Maker elected her to the Number 1 position among the 'most sexy people in rock'. She recorded a duet with Manic Street Preachers—Black Holes for the Young—as a B-side for their 1998 single The Everlasting. Some songs released by theaudience are I Got the Wherewithal, If You Can't Do It When You're Young; When Can You Do It?, I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough), and A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed (perhaps their best-known single). The band split in December 1998.

Rise to fame

After theaudience split, Sophie took a year off from singing; she tried modelling, but didn't like it and soon gave it up. She also started writing a novel. In 2000, Sophie collaborated with Italian DJ Spiller on adding vocals to his then-instrumental club track Groovejet, her first recorded work since that with theaudience. Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) entered the U.K. charts at No. 1, just beating former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham to the top spot. Since then, the two have been known as rivals.^[4] Groovejet won several awards: No. 1, Pop Top 20; No. 1, ILR; No. 1, Radio 1; No. 8, top dance track of 2000 and single of the year in Melody Maker. In the Metro Newspaper, it received ninth place in the contest for the Greatest No. 1 of all time, beating even Madonna.^[5] In 2000, it was a finalist in The Record of the Year. In that same year, it won the awards for Best Single and Best Ibiza Tune at the Ericsson Muzik Awards.^[6]

Read My Lips

In 2001, Sophie released her debut album, Read My Lips. It reached No. 2 on the UK charts and spawned four top-20 hit singles. Her part cover of Cher's "Take Me Home" reached No. 2, as did "Murder on the Dancefloor", which became Sophie's biggest single to date and was on charts for 23 weeks.^[7] In 2002, "Murder on the Dancefloor" became Europe's most played song of the year. Her third single, "Get Over You" / "Move This Mountain" was released in June 2002 and reached No. 3. The fourth single, "Music Gets the Best of Me", rose to No. 14 in December. In 2002, Read My Lips was re-released and Ellis-Bextor won the Recording Artist Award at that year's Showbusiness Awards.^[8] At the beginning of 2002, Ellis-Bextor was nominated for the "British Female Solo Artist" BRIT Award, going on to be nominated for a further two consecutive years.^[9][10][11]

Shoot from the Hip

Her second album, Shoot from the Hip, was released in October 2003. Although it was not as commercially successful as her previous material, it held two further top-10 singles. However, a 3rd & 4th single accompanied by the Shoot From The Hip Tour would have boosted album sales considerably if Sophie's career had not been put on hold. The album reached no higher than No. 19 on the UK charts; its two singles were "Mixed Up World", which reached No. 7, and "I Won't Change You", reaching No. 9. Around this time, rivalry against Victoria Beckham was suggested again; Victoria's single "This Groove" / "Let Your Head Go" reached the #3, a higher position in the charts than "I Won't Change You".

Trip the Light Fantastic

After that, Sophie paused her musical career to take care of her first child, a boy named Sonny (b. 23 April 2004), with Richard Jones, who is bass guitarist for The Feeling. The pair later married, on 25 June 2005 in Italy. In early 2005, she performed on a track by the duo Busface, entitled "Circles (Just My Good Time)"; she is credited under the temporary pseudonym "Mademoiselle E.B." because she didn't want the track to be mistaken as a single from her next album. In 2004, she announced that she was working on a third album. She worked with Fred Schneider of The B-52s and Richard Barone (formerly of The Bongos), Shelly Poole (formerly of Alisha's Attic), Cathy Dennis and Kerin Smith (formerly of theaudience) among others to create a fun dance/party, disco-pop album which was released on May 21st, 2007 and is entitled Trip the Light Fantastic.^[12]

In August 2006 it was announced that she was the new 'face' of high street fashion chain Monsoon replacing the model Sophie Dahl. She was also first choice for the controversial Agent Provocateur luxury underwear commercial which she turned down. (The role instead went to the second choice - Kylie Minogue).

Before the album two singles were released, Catch You, which charted in the UK through downloads alone at #18 and peaked at #8 after a physical release and Me and My Imagination which was released on May 14th and charted at #23. Her album Trip the Light Fantastic debuted at #7 on the UK albums chart and just missed the top 20 the following week, falling to #21.

Sophie supported George Michael on his UK tour leg in June 2007. Her own UK tour was due to start on the 14th August 2007, entitled Trip The Light Fantastic Tour, but, on September 8, 2007, on her official website, Sophie said that she had postponed it because she has been invited to be the "special guest" on the forthcoming Take That European Tour, which kicks off on October 11, 2007 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Sophie confirmed that her tour will be re-scheduled for March next year as it had proven difficult, if not impossible to do both. All tickets purchased will be valid for next year. 1.

The third single off Trip The Light Fantastic was Today the Sun's on Us, which was released on 13th August 2007. The track received good reviews, and the accompanying video, directed by Sophie Muller and shot in Reykjavik, Iceland has achieved strong airplay on music channels; this did not help sales of the single, however, which debuted on the UK Singles Chart at #64. The single, however, was responsible for the album's re-entry into the top 100, where it spent another two weeks.

She performed "If I Can't Dance" on DanceX, BBC One on 28 July 2007 and confirmed that it would be the fourth single in an interview with Digital Spy on 2 August 2007, a position that was later retracted in an interview on her website dated 12 August 2007.^{[13] [14]} "Love Is Here" was confirmed on her website as the fourth single, however, this will never be materialized, because she will be releasing in late November the first single from her first "Greatest Hits" compilation. ^[15] Due to the release date of the Greatest Hits being pushed back, however, the single released in November will, in fact, be from "Trip the Light Fantastic": Ellis-Bextor is quoted as saying "I think for the Greatest Hits, you want songs that are really authentically what you do. I'm still not sure what the fourth single will be yet! 'If I Can't Dance' is featured in the St. Trinians film so that might mean that that is going to be used. Plus I've been using that as an opening track and when I play it live it seems to work well."

On the first of September 2007, Sophie will contest in Sopot Festival 2007 in Poland, representing the UK, and her rivals will be music stars like: September, Thierry Amiel, The Cloud Room and Monrose.

The Greatest Hits

Sophie has started working on a greatest hits album. According to her, the album should be out sometime in March 2008. She's worked with Calvin Harris and Cathy Dennis on new tracks for the album, with one of them is going to be a single confirmed to be released on the 19th of November.[3] There have been many rumours that Sophie might include her theaudience songs as well, but it hasn't been officially confirmed.

Rumours have it that the GH album will be a double disc with previously unreleased tracks "Dontcha Wanna Get Crazy", "You Will Do For Now", "Fake Love To Me" on it, along with the MAMI b-side "Here's To You", which was previously unreleased on CD and her side releases "One Way Or Another" and "Want You More"

Discography

Further information: Sophie Ellis-Bextor discography

References and Notes

External links

• SophieEllisBextor.net — official website
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor at MySpace
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor Interview on ilikemusic.com — 2007
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor at All Music Guide
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor at the Internet Movie Database

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