Sophie Ellis-Bextor says viral success shows that music isn’t just a young person’s game.
The 44-year-old pop star is having a renaissance after her 2001 hit ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ soundtracked a viral scene in the movie ‘Saltburn’ and subsequently went viral on TikTok, and she says it proves that the industry is less ageist these days.
She told Grazia magazine: “I’m still getting my head around it. It’s extraordinary. I think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime unique kind of thing.
“The pressure is off; [the song] has been such a defining part of my career already that this new adventure is just a feeling of pure enjoyment and not really worrying too much about what it all means.”
On why she thinks it’s still as relevant after more than two decades, she said: “The first time I performed it live I dedicated it to a friend who had just broken up with a boy, to make her feel better, so maybe there’s something timeless about songs that just want to bring people joy.”
On the changing music industry, she added: “What’s empowering is that when I started, because we didn’t have that viral element of music, there was a really small group of people who were dictating what got played.”
She explained the TikTok success “shows that people are able to think far more excitingly about music” and “all those rules about pop music being a young person’s game are absolute rubbish.”