Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Songs from the Kitchen Disco review - Spirit-lifting renaissance

If you'd told Sophie Ellis-Bextor this time last year that she'd be releasing a greatest hits collection off the back of Instagram gigs performed from her kitchen during a global pandemic... well, you know how the rest goes. It's been a strange year, yet here we are,and the English pop star's unlikely renaissance engendered by her spirit-lifting "kitchen discos"continues apace.

It’s easy to forget how many gems Ellis-Bextor has in her canon from Groovejet (embellished for a 2020 remix and still sounding great 20 years on) to the sophisticated finger-snapping pop of Murder on the Dancefloor, Take Me Home and Music Gets the Best of Me.

Elsewhere, further delights are mined in the empowering bop of Mixed Up World, the glitter ball disco swing of Bittersweet and the tender-piano balladry of Young Blood, while her covers of New Order’s True Faith and Pulp’s Do You Remember the First Time? are surprisingly delightful.

If the mark of a great song is that it works in any setting – be it a kitchen surrounded by small children hanging off your leg or on the dance floor of an actual club in the wee hours – this collection is evidence that the perennially-underestimated Ellis-Bextor has amassed more than a few of them over the last two decades.