Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Daughter of director Robin Bextor and Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis, Sophie Ellis-Bextor (born on April 10, 1979) is a British singer and model whose musical career started as the lead singer for British pop band Theaudience. After releasing three singles, Theaudience disbanded in 1998, and Ellis-Bextor went on to pursue a solo career. With her distinctive voice and individual style, Ellis-Bextor achieved overnight fame in 2000 as the vocalist on DJ Spiller's iconic club tune “Groovejet (If This Ain't Love),” which topped the UK Singles Chart. Her debut solo album Read My Lips was released in 2001, reaching Number 2 in the UK Albums Chart. From this album, she had two chart-topping singles, “Take Me Home” and “Murder on the Dancefloor.” Further single “Get Over You/Move This Mountain” was released in 2002, reaching Number 3 in the UK. She released her second album Shoot from the Hip in 2003. This album produced two further top ten singles, “Mixed Up World” and “I Won't Change You.” She met and married Richard Jones from The Feeling and took a career break to look after the first of their five sons, returning to music in 2007 with the album Trip the Light Fantastic. She took part in two high profile tours in this year, supporting George Michael and Take That. Her next album Make a Scene was not released until 2011. This was a collaborative mixture with various artists including Calvin Harris, Armin van Buuren, Metronomy, and Liam Howe from Sneaker Pimps. The singles “Bittersweet,” “Not Giving Up On Love,” “Starlight,” and “Off & On” were all released from this album. Ellis-Bextor spent the next three years working on her fifth album, which was released in 2014. Wanderlust was a departure from the dance pop genre of her previous albums and was co-written and produced by Ed Harcourt. It received critical acclaim, was certified Gold in the UK, and spent three weeks in the Top 10 of the UK Albums Chart. The single “Young Blood” was released in 2013. Wanderlust was followed in 2016 with Familia, which returned to her previous dance music style and produced the radio hit “Come with Us.” She also worked on several more collaborations with artists such as Guéna LG and Amir Afargan on “Back 2 Paradise” and with DedRekoning on “Only Child.” In 2016, Ellis-Bextor started working on her seventh album, which features orchestrations of her hit singles under the title The Song Diaries. This album, also produced by Harcourt, was released in March 2019. A subsequent compilation entitled Songs from the Kitchen Disco came out in 2020, including Ellis-Bextor’s greatest hits as well as a couple of cover versions from Alcazar (“Crying at the Discotheque”), Pulp (“Do You Remember the First Time?”), and New Order (“True Faith”).