Sophie Ellis Bextor - Trip The Light Fantastic

Sometimes better breaking baby, in the sun, before it's gone...

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VoR

VoR

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While we're talking Lady Soph. Definitely her most :disco: -tastic album for me. The first two are decent but I never totally clicked with either of them. This however converted me into a full on LOON.

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10 Catch You
08 Me & My Imagination
10 Today The Sun's On Us
09 New York City Lights
08 If I Can't Dance
10 The Distance Between Us
11 If You Go
05 Only One
09 Love Is Here
08 New Flame
09 China Heart
08 What Have We Started
07 Can't Have It All
06 Supersonic

If it wasn't for the two not-quite-up-to-standard "Bonus tracks" (Why not Dear Jimmy and Colour Me In? :evil: ) and the rubbish 'Only One' it would be a near-perfect pop record for me.
 
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Annoyingly, I got my version off Music Wow and it doesn't have the two UK bonus tracks on it...which the website SAID IT DID and which I argued with them for for about a MONTH before I gave up because they JUST DID NOT REPLY. Shitbags..

Anyway, as VoR said really but WHY OH WHY no "Dear Jimmy", which remains one of the BEST THINGS SHE'S EVER DONE

10 Catch You
08 Me & My Imagination
10 Today The Sun's On Us
08 New York City Lights
07 If I Can't Dance
09 The Distance Between Us
11 If You Go
00 Only One (ABSOLUTELY UNLISTENABLE)
09 Love Is Here
09 New Flame
10 China Heart
09 What Have We Started
07 Can't Have It All
08 Supersonic
 
I'd kill for a proper studio version of Jimmy Jimmy with a real intro and outro. It MUST exist!

Her cover of Duel was ace too. Probably would have made a better single than the song it was the B-Side to! Much as I love Today The Sun's On Us it was never a hit...
 
"Duel" is just good because the original is...it's not really ALL THAT
 
08 Catch You - Majorly UN-grown on me over the past year or so
07 Me & My Imagination - Possibly the worst second single choice ever
10 Today The Sun's On Us - Blindingly beautiful with a stunning video
08 New York City Lights
08 If I Can't Dance
06 The Distance Between Us
10 If You Go - The obviously follow-up to Catch You, bloody Sophie not wanting to release it
07 Only One
09 Love Is Here
08 New Flame
08 China Heart
06 What Have We Started
10 Can't Have It All - This makes me want to WEEP. WHY it was just a bonus I cannot fathom
10 Supersonic - See above. Gaytastic
 
Oh and the Catch You b-side 'Down With Love' shouldve made the album, it's quite anthemic
 
Only One better than the absolutely gorgeous 'The Distance Between Us'?

PFFT, Jark! PFFT!
 
09 Catch You
09 Me & My Imagination
08 Today The Sun's On Us
07 New York City Lights
07 If I Can't Dance
08 The Distance Between Us
09 If You Go
-1 Only One
07 Love Is Here
08 New Flame
08 China Heart
11 What Have We Started
07 Can't Have It All
07 Supersonic
 
VoR said:
Only One better than the absolutely gorgeous 'The Distance Between Us'?

PFFT, Jark! PFFT!
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There are a couple of really beautiful songs on Trip, but Distance is just BLAND.
 
WRONG

'Distance' is SUCH a headphones record. The way the chorus builds up is amazing.

"OOOOOOH"
 
If I Can't Dance is like a JOKE and I'm still not sure whether I love or hate it.
 
Much prefer the second album. That is an 11/10 album for me.

Something just doesn't sit right with me with TTLF and i still don't know what. Still good enough for a seven.
 
Sheena said:
00 Only One (ABSOLUTELY UNLISTENABLE)
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:D

The 'windswept eye' and 'suit you better than I' lines are always good for a giggle, but all in all it does sound like a cast-off from the first The Feeling album, and judging from the co-writer, it probably WAS.

"Dear Jimmy" indeed needs to see the light of day at some point or other. Preferably as the theme tune to a big-budget remake of Psycho.
 
I love this album, it can have a ten for being wonderfully consistant. It is one of the few albums that i can listen to all the way through.

08 Catch You
10 Me & My Imagination
10 Today The Sun's On Us - I love the richmann mix a bit more too.
08 New York City Lights
09 If I Can't Dance
10 The Distance Between Us
11 If You Go
07 Only One
09 Love Is Here
09 New Flame
09 China Heart
08 What Have We Started
07 Can't Have It All
08 Supersonic

Hmmm, looking at that it doesn't actually average at a 10 at all. Oh well, i still love it loads. And maybe Sophie will google herself and find this thread and like me more than the rest of you because of my vote.
 
09 Catch You
10 Me & My Imagination
08 Today The Sun's On Us
08 New York City Lights
11 If I Can't Dance
09 The Distance Between Us
10 If You Go
10 Only One
10 Love Is Here (was my initial fave, but If I Cant Dance is just too perfect)
09 New Flame
09 China Heart
08 What Have We Started
07 Can't Have It All
10 Supersonic

Also: Move To The Music is one of my fave songs from the 'era', Down With Love is also very good.
 
Johnkm said:
Move To The Music is one of my fave songs from the 'era'
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Indeed! From the title you'd presume it to be a piece of throwaway braindead fluff knocked off in 3 minutes and a half, but it's got some delightful melancholia to it.

The parties and lovers calling
Days when nothing went right :(

Might even have fared better as a single than its A-side!
 
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Ag said:
If You Go is SENSATIONAL
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Nine years on, never a truer statement was spoken. It really might be her best song. I can't think of anything that matches it for sheer Kylie-esque glittery melancholy.
 
I haven't played this for YEARS, but "If You Go" was lodged in my brain right from the first listen. It's truly a marvel.
 
iTunes tells me it's almost exactly five years TO THE DAY when I last played this. Time to rectify THAT.
 
Her best album for me followed by Familia. However Synchronised from Make A Scene came on my shuffle earlier and I genuine thought it might be my favourite SEB song.
 
Her best album

10 Catch You
10 Me & My Imagination
15 Today The Sun's On Us (such a happy song. Kind of makes me feel the same way as Your Disco Needs You)
10 New York City Lights
09 If I Can't Dance
09 The Distance Between Us
10 If You Go
05 Only One - hmm
10 Love Is Here (this one is so good too)
08 New Flame
07 China Heart
06 What Have We Started
10000 Can't Have It All (why was this a bonus track? I love it so so so much)
07 Supersonic
 
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Why won't I listen when I hear them saying
You're better off without a heart that's breaking?
Though I'm fool enough to love
When you don't want me
I'm wise enough to know
That you will always haunt me

This could make me cry in the right circumstance
 
This is easily her best album but some of the decisions were shocking. Me & My Imagination is one of the worst songs on here and even if you don't think that, it was a terrible choice as second single. Sophie and her "sound" on auto pilot. Given she was still capable of radio support at this time, it squandered any chances. And much as I love "Catch You", again it probably wasn't the strongest opener.

Add to this that "Can't Have It All" (I even made up a video for this in my head where she was in a mossy dungeon of a castle, with puddles, dancing and splashing in bare feet while dramatically grabbing the cell bars...well, it made sense to me at the time) was so much better than a bonus track, as was the full throttle campness of Supersonic and it makes you wonder what might have been. Probably not a lot but it's easier to blame poor decisions in retrospect. "Move to the Music" and "Down With Love" (somehow I only heard these recently) absolutely should have been on there too
 
I'd have gone:

1. If You Go
2. China Heart
3. Today The Sun's On Us
4. Down With Love
 
totally agree. the single choices were weird, even if Catch You went top 10 against the odds, but I'm so with @RJN that Today The Sun's On Us is a 15 and actually the best song of her career. and If You Go is a 14. Can't Have It All is also stun. she had entered Kylie territory with the gay melancholy of those three.
 
I do think Imagination got significant airplay though, that wasn’t the issue.

I just don’t think she’s ever really truly had mass commercial appeal, and that Murder (and her involvement in Groovejet) were more sort of accidents that got her to a level she would never otherwise have got to as far as chart action goes.
 
Devil said:
I do think Imagination got significant airplay though, that wasn’t the issue.

I just don’t think she’s ever really truly had mass commercial appeal, and that Murder (and her involvement in Groovejet) were more sort of accidents that got her to a level she would never otherwise have got to as far as chart action goes.
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But that's what I mean, Catch You was top 10 (albeit not really a hit per se) and I feel like Imagination was just so boring relatively that no one cared. I don't know if she or the record company wanted it but it felt like chasing the "it's a bit disco, classic Sophie sound, it's what people want from her" kind of angle which was lazy and misguided. If that's what it was; maybe she loved it, I don't know. Either way, there were better ways to push the project

I agree with the latter however. She always feels like an accidental popstar and a lucky strike to be treasured. Even at peak Read My Lips era, re-release and Get Over You it always felt odd to see her competing with the big pop girls at the time. But wonderful obviously
 
Me and My Imagination was a rubbish single choice, but it was also hampered by a STOCKING PROBLEMS debacle. iTunes didn’t make it available until a week after it was supposed to, and I think when all the promo was being done etc. She always maintained it would have gone top ten if it had been “properly” released and though I doubt that, it would have certainly not bombed quite as it did- it’s chart run was odd as well in that it had two weeks relatively close together in the 20s, then collapsed.
 
But yes, not releasing If You Go at any point was silly. They were clearly trying to go quirky for the second single (as with Murder and, when you think about, I Won’t Change You) but Catch You- If You Go was the right 1-2 pre-album punch for sure.
 
Devil said:
I do think Imagination got significant airplay though, that wasn’t the issue.

I just don’t think she’s ever really truly had mass commercial appeal, and that Murder (and her involvement in Groovejet) were more sort of accidents that got her to a level she would never otherwise have got to as far as chart action goes.
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I slightly disagree with this. The first album was properly big. It wasn’t far off a million in the end and Take Me Home and Get Over You were also proper hits, as well as the two you’ve mentioned.

The second album screwed her over. The image was odd, she was pregnant and so promo curtailed and it just all went a bit pear shaped. The record company cast her aside, pretty much, when she couldn’t do promo for the singles properly and they underperformed.
 
Oh I do agree, the first album did very well and it was great to see. I just always got the feeling being one of the ‘big pop girls’ was a bit accidental and perhaps not that well suited to her general sound which is a bit more niche. Similar to Nat Imbruglia and her debut single making her a massive pop star when otherwise she might have been more a typical decent-but-commercially-average seller off the bat.

The two big hits were not representative at all of the original album, to the point that they needed a re-release with two new tracks, both blatantly aimed at keeping this audience she had somehow found. Very smart, of course, but seemed odd that if they had gone for another single after Murder from the original I really don’t think anything would have been more than a #12 or so. Even Get Over You and Music had rather shit chart runs.
 
I keep forgetting how much of a fall from grace Shoot From The Hip was, that probably derailed future projects itself. I do remember the Shirley Manson-esque "she's flopping because she's gone BLONDE" being a sort of thing though :D Mixed Up World will forever be one of those cherished half-failures, the public just weren't having any of it sadly.

Not sure if it's popular or not but her cover of "Physical" is probably my second favourite thing on that album!
 
Physical is on the album?! I’ll have to sync it up! I knew she covered Yes Sir, I Can Boogie as a B side but had completely not remembered Physical.
 
Devil said:
Physical is on the album?! I’ll have to sync it up! I knew she covered Yes Sir, I Can Boogie as a B side but had completely not remembered Physical.
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Yeah it was one of those dreaded hidden tracks, right at the end after minutes of silence. It's on the Spotify album too, about 9 minutes into Hello Hello
 
My standouts from Shoot From The Hip are ‘Another Day’, ‘Nowhere Without You’ and ‘I Am Not Good At Not Getting What I Want’. ‘Another Day’ in particular felt on brand with ‘Read My Lips’ and could’ve been a decent bridge single.
 
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