SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR

'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.

Contents

Biography

theaudience

Rise to fame

Read My Lips

Shoot from the Hip

Trip the Light Fantastic

Rumours about a "Best Of"

Discography

References and Notes

External links

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 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

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. ''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.^[4] 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.^[5]

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.^[6] 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.^[7] 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.^[8][9][10]

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''.^[11]
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 starts 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 posponed her own UK Tour because she is the "special guest" on the forthcoming Take That UK Tour, which kicks off on October 11, 2007 in Belfast, North Ireland. Although this, Sophie confirmed that her tour will be relaunched early the next year. 1.
The third single off Trip The Light Fantastic is 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, 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 reentry into the top 100.
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.^{[12] [13]}
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.

Rumours about a "Best Of"

Currently, there are many romours around the posibility of the release in 2008 of a "Best Of", which will contain all the hits from "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" to the last single released, and some singles from theaudience and new songs. Also, it's said that her label, Fascination/Polydor, has suggested her to do this greatest hits, and release it in late 2008 ^[14].

Discography

Main articles: Sophie Ellis-Bextor discography

References and Notes

1. [1]
2. W11 Opera Website
3. 'Read My Lips' Sensation Says, 'Don't Wear Fur!'
4. Melody Maker 2000
5. Spiller and Jaxx take Muzik honours
6. Murder On The Dancefloor, World Charts
7. Varierty Club Website
8. BRIT Awards 2004
9. The Brits 2003, The Nominees
10. Brits Awards: The Nominees
11. Sophie Ellis-Bextor's Official Forum
12. Video: Sophie Ellis-Bextor speaks
13. Sophie Ellis-Bextor's official website
14. Popjustice Forum

External links

★ SophieEllisBextor.net — official website

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★ Sophie Ellis-Bextor Interview on ilikemusic.com — 2007

★ Sophie Ellis-Bextor at All Music Guide

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★ Sophie Ellis-Bextor main facebook group