Spinning Plates: Thoughts on Men, Music and Motherhood

Sophie Ellis-Bextor shares her experiences, insights and reflections on men, music and motherhood.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s kitchen discos became a source of much needed escapism, catharsis and sequined joy for a swathe of the population during lockdown. From knackered mothers and fed up fathers, to cooped up partiers with nowhere to go, Sophie’s gloriously chaotic Friday kitchen performances have cheered and revived us.

Now Sophie is bringing that same mixture of down to earth candour and optimistic sparkle to her first book. Part memoir, part musings, Sophie will write about the conjuring act of adulthood and motherhood and how her experience of working while raising her five sons has given her the inescapable lesson of how to navigate life in the face of failure and imperfection.

Covering relationships, good enough parenting, the importance of delusion and dancing, Sophie writes about the things that take on greater importance as life becomes more complicated. From the non negotiables (solitude, music, glitter) to the unimportant (clean hair, deadlines, appropriate behaviour), this is a book about learning from our experiences and not being afraid to smash a few plates for the sake of what we actually need want and value.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor shot to fame as a vocalist on Spiller’s huge number one single, ’Groovejet’ and with her worldwide smash hit, ’Murder on the Dancefloor’.

Her debut solo album, ’Read My Lips’, was released in 2001 and sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. Her subsequent album releases include ’Shoot from the Hip’ (2003), ’Trip the Light Fantastic’ (2007) and ’Make a Scene’ (2011). In 2014, Sophie released her album ’Wanderlust’ on her own label EBGB’s, which was co-written and produced by Ed Harcourt. It was a critical and commercial success spending 3 weeks in the UK top 10 and selling over 100,000 copies.

Sophie followed this with 2016’s ’Familia’. In 2019, with Ed Harcourt as Producer and Amy Langley (of Dirty Pretty Strings) arranging, Sophie released orchestrated versions of all her hits with her orchestral greatest hits album ’The Song Diaries’.

In 2020 and 2021, her Kitchen Discos, performed at home during lockdown with her five sons and recorded by her husband, musician Richard Jones, were watched and enjoyed by millions around the world. Following the performances, she released ’Songs From The Kitchen Disco’, bringing together Sophie’s hits with many other songs from her phenomenally successful lockdown Kitchen Disco performances, garnering further critical acclaim and another top 10 UK album chart position.