Sophie Ellis-Bextor says her new album Perimenopop is a celebration of both pop music and the freedom that comes with age.
The 46-year-old singer, who first found fame in the late ’90s with indie band Theaudience before launching a solo career, spoke candidly about the project during a recent live show at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
“I’ve been singing for 30 years now and throughout my career I’ve been lucky enough to happily play with many music genres, but my heart beats the fastest for pop,” she told the audience.
“This album is a celebration of that relationship.
In fact, it’s a celebration of lots of things, including being the age I’m at and still having so many adventures and so much fun.”
Set for release in September, Perimenopop will be Sophie’s eighth studio album and her first since 2021’s Songs from the Kitchen Disco.
While she’s long been a favourite among pop fans, her music reached a new audience in 2023 after Murder on the Dancefloor was featured in the closing scene of the film Saltburn. The moment, which saw actor Barry Keoghan dancing nude to the 2001 hit, helped catapult the track back into the charts and onto countless streaming playlists.
Since then, Sophie has been riding a fresh wave of attention. Speaking at the end of 2024, she told BBC Breakfast:
“There were some things I knew I was doing this year and there were so many things that I wasn’t expecting.
I think there’s a lot to reflect on. I’ve never done so many shows in my life. I’ve done about 110 gigs this year.
That’s not just me, that’s all my band and crew as well. Amazing.
There’s been some real highlights. It’s an extraordinary thing to get to my stage in my career and to still be doing things, new excitement. So I’ve just wanted to really grab hold of that. And this is very much part of that as well.”
