Covid ‘catastrophic’ for music industry warns Sophie Ellis-Bextor

15 November 2020, 23:34

Pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor has warned the coronavirus pandemic is “catastrophic” for the music industry, in an interview on LBC’s An Inconvenient Ruth.

The musician, who has sold millions of records over more than two decades, told Ruth Davidson that all of her friends in the industry were “kind of discombobulated” at the cancellation of all of their concerts over the summer.

Ms Ellis-Bextor added: “As the year’s gone on and they haven’t felt like they have been properly addressed by the government their voices have become more frightened, more angry.”

“I think it’s the uncertainty at the moment that’s making everybody feel very wobbly,” she explained.

The former Strictly star has performed live weekly "Kitchen Disco" concerts during the pandemic, live streaming from her kitchen on Instagram.

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Ms Ellis-Bextor has also released a new music video for her latest single ‘Quiet at the Discotheque’, which was filmed at empty music venues across London.

Discussing the music video, she told Ruth: “We worked alongside a campaign called ‘we make events’, who are trying to look out for musicians and crew, and everyone involved in the sort of live entertainment world.

“We worked alongside them just to try and highlight that really, because it does feel like there’s has been this big hole that has been opened, and it’s expected for people to figure out the way to bring that hole back together.

“But actually this is pretty catastrophic and if things don’t right themselves by the spring in some form, then I think the ramifications are going to be pretty bad actually in terms of economically.”

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Describing herself as “fundamentally an optimist”, Ms Ellis-Bextor added that she hoped the government would step in as “the arts are such a fundamental part of how we live our lives and what we need to feel good about things”.

“The urge for that to survive and thrive in some capacity has got to be strong enough that there will be a way round most of this stuff,” she continued.