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Baker's Dozen

Time Portals: Sophie Ellis-Bextor's Favourite Albums
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

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Daft Punk – Discovery
Probably everybody at that time was influenced by Daft Punk, it was confident and shiny and had big hooks and sounded sophisticated and cool. It's a really good example of my epiphany that dance music can be good, really good. When I did 'Groovejet' I didn't like or understand dance music, house music, garage music, so I really discovered it back to front. 'Groovejet' took me by the hand into clubs and opened my mind to it all. I realised that DJs weren't playing one song after the other and were taking you on a journey. If you were anybody making anything poppy or dance-y then I'm sure that Daft Punk were mentioned in your studio.

So did you have a few good years of exploring clubbing?

Yeah, and it might not have been that solo of a journey as dance music was becoming much more commercialised anyway, it was more common that dance songs were crossing over to becoming household classics, so I think it was opening up for lots of people. But it was about my confidence in what kind of a singer I wanted to be. So long as it resonates with me and I'm doing it for the right reasons I don't have to stick to one genre at all. I've always been a little bit of a kid in a sweet shop really.