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and Table.
01. Making Music *
02. Mixed Up World
03. I Won't Change You
04. Nowhere Without You
05. Another Day
06. Party In My Head
07. Love It Is Love
08. You Get Yours
09. The Walls Keep Saying Your Name
10. I Won't Dance With You *
11. I'm Not Good At Not Getting What I Want
12. Hello, Hello
Hidden track: Physical *
* Only available on the UK version
UK Albums Chart: #19 French Albums Chart: #99 German Albums Chart: #84 Mexican Albums Chart: #25 Mexican Int. Albums Charts: #11 New Zealand Albums Chart: #39 Swiss Albums Chart: #35
THE ravishing Sophie Ellis-Bextor is a genuine English rose amongst today's other brassy azaleas of disposable, fatuous assembly-line popsters. While
half-baked "talents" like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and airhead Jessica Simpson are content squealing saccharine commercial ditties, Sophie
brings a much-needed touch of sophistication to the charts with her spiky, acute brand of intelligent dance-pop.
Add a plummy, posh London
Estuary accent, some eye-poppingly sharp cheekbones and piercing emerald eyes that can make mountains quiver, and you've got a perfect pop package
that is eminently chart-friendly but doesn't insult your intelligence. Sophie obviously mines the same vein of lyrical gold as the distinguished Pet Shop
Boys, applying the same sort of acerbic wit to her tales of social idiosyncrasies, dysfunctional relationships and romantic one-upmanship, all couched
(if a little hermetically) within the boundaries of somewhat straightforward dance-pop. Which is not to say that this hasn't given her some degree of
commercial success: after all, her debut single from 2000, Groovejet, stormed to the top of the charts in its very first week, managing to beat off
competition from ex-Spice Girl Victoria Adams, who also released her inaugural single at the same time.
Subsequent stonking singles like Take
Me Home, Murder on the Dancefloor and Get Over You all managed placings in the Top 10, as did her maiden album Read My Lips. And now, her sophomore
effort, impudently entitled Shoot from the Hip (a blatant indication of Sophie's take-no-prisoners approach to making it big), has been released - if
only to give notice to the charts that Her Exalted Poshness is back in business. This is most definitely not your usual British-pop effort as peddled
by the anaemic likes of, say, the defunct Atomic Kitten. After all, very few albums can boast to have been produced by Gregg Alexander, erstwhile
leader of rock brainiacs New Radicals, and guest-stars luminaries like Blur's bass and production wizard Alex James and ex-Suede guitar deity Bernard
Butler.
Making Music kicks off the proceedings, a streamlined melange of electroclash-inspired synths and flailing rhythms, above which Sophie's
colder-than-ice upper-crust drawl makes a statement about, well, making good pop music. First single Mixed Up World takes a page from the Human League
songbook, a sparkling electro-pop bauble about acknowledging one's inherent sarcasm ("Cynicism rules the day, I know it has its place"). Nowhere Without
You stumbles a bit with its array of intentionally mocking romantic clichés, but Party in My Head get the journey back on track with its swoonsome
mutated-Bacharach beat-pop groove.
Alex James gets to show off his instrumental genius on Love It Is Love, a throbbing late-80s-style house
number, and I Won't Change You utilises melodic Pet Shop Boys-approved synth grooves. And finally, there is the excellently titled I Am Not Good at
Not Getting What I Want, a wonderfully austere torch song whose title could well be Sophie's perennial mission statement. The celebrated Bernard Butler
provides some of his trademark luminous guitar pyrotechnics on this dramatic closer to an exceptional album.
As they say, there is pop music,
and there is quality pop music, and by jove, does Sophie exemplify the latter. This is easily leagues ahead of the other tiresomely naff processed cheese
that passes off as chart fodder nowadays, and Sophie's high-class sass gives Shoot from the Hip a distinct identity that has no counterpart anywhere else.
Any detractors who claim that Sophie's wilfully indifferent vocals leave them cold are clearly missing the point that her unaffected style is exactly
what makes her stand out from the crowd. Long live Queen Sophie, may her adversaries all fall.
Making Music Damian leGassick; written by Ellis-Bextor and Davis Mixed Up World Gregg Alexander and Matt Rowe; written by
Ellis-Bextor, Alexander and Rowe I Won't Change You Gregg Alexander, Damian leGassick, Matt Rowe and Jeremy Wheatley; written by Ellis-Bextor,
Alexander and Rowe Nowhere Without You Damian leGassick; written by Ellis-Bextor and Davis Another Day Damian leGassick;
written by Ellis-Bextor Party In My Head Damian leGassick; written by Ellis-Bextor, Alexander and Rowe Love, It Is Love Damian
leGassick; written by Ellis-Bextor, James, Rowe and Simpson You Get Yours Damian leGassick; written by Ellis-Bextor, Boyd and Newell
The Walls Keep Saying Your Name Damian leGassick; written by Ellis-Bextor I Won't Dance With You Damian leGassick; written by
Ellis-Bextor and leGassick I Am Not Good At Not Getting What I Want Damian leGassick; written by Ellis-Bextor and Butler Hello, Hello
Damian leGassick; written by Ellis-Bextor and leGassick
TRACKS (CD1):
01. I Won't Change You
02. Murder On The Dancefloor (Phunk Investigation Vocal mix)
TRACKS (CD2):
01. I Won't Change You
02. I Won't Change You (Solaris Vocal mix)
03. Yes Sir, I Can Boogie
04. I Won't Change You (video)
The promotion of Shoot From The Hip occured only in 2003, as Sophie got pregnant during the promotion of its first single,
Mixed Up World. Her Read My Lips tour ended in March 2003, since that, she started recording her second album, which was released
in October after the first single.
To promote the album and the singles, Sophie did the usual performances on TOTP, CD:UK, Popworld
and GMTV. She also performed on Children In Need, MTV Shakedown, Graham Norton, Jensen, The National Lottery and some others. She also
did some interviews on The Kumars and Popworld, for example.
Children In Need
Top of The Pops
Brits' Warming Up
At G-A-Y in 2004
It was only in December [of that same year] that Sophie revealed that she was
already three months pregnant. The press, of course, caused a fuss about it, but Sophie stated that the pregnancy was planned.
Due to her pregnancy, she had to cancel her tour to promote the album around the Europe, which already had 10 dates planned.
In 2004,
Sophie attended The Brits as she had been, for the third time in a rom, nominated to The Best Female Singer, but again she didn't win it. Her last
performance was at G-A-Y on March 13th 2004, when she was already six months pregnant. On April 23rd 2004, Sonny
Jones was born, eight weeks earlier than expected because of a pre-eclampsia condition. Sophie, then, took next three years to enjoy
her motherhood.
The tour that never was... as we all know, Shoot From The Hip's tour never occured because of Sophie's pregnancy. However, there were, indeed,
10 dates planned for 2004 all of them to take place in England, which were:
• March 12 - York, Barbican
• March 14 - Oxford, Apollo
• March 15 - Leicester, De Montfort Hall
• March 16 - Portsmouth, Guilhall
• March 18 - Plymouth, Pavilions
• March 19 - Cambridge, Corn Exchange
• March 20 - Ipswich, Regent Theatre
• March 22 - Manchester, Apollo
• March 23 - Birmingham, NIA Academy
• March 24 - London, Hammersmith Apollo
»Love It Is Love was supposed to be the third single, she mentioned it on a radio interview, but because of Sophie's
pregnancy, it was never released. There were also rumours that she'd like to have released Party In My Head.
» The covers of the album have different colours depending on which version it is. In the UK version, the letters are in
white, while the version for any other country, apart from the UK, they are in green.
» Only the UK version has the hidden track, Physical. Sophie said that she hates the fact that the UK version has more
tracks. She is contractually obliged to remove tracks for outside the UK, but she didn't know that they had also cut off the hidden track.
She said "it's something to do with royalties. I am really sorry, you're the ones who suffer".
» Although the album was well received by the fans and critics, it wasn't as successful as her debut album, Read My Lips, which
has sold more than 2.5 million copies, while Shoot From The Hip hasn't sold even 200,000.
» Sophie's former boyfriend and manager, Andy Boyd, does the "wall"'s vocal on The Walls Keep Saying Your Name.
