KT Tunstall: 'I was a totally crap pop star... It's important to kill your idea of what you should be'

Sky News

16-03-2025

Twenty years on from her breakout hit Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall is refreshingly candid about her early career: "I was a totally crap pop star," she tells Sky News.
The Scottish singer-songwriter may have a Brit and Ivor Novello to her name - won the year after she outsold every other female artist in the UK - but she's not taking any prisoners.
"You have an idea of what you should be as an artist, I think it's really, really important to kill that."
She goes on: "The whole point of being an artist is that you never know what you're going to be, and you should never assume that you know.
"I think there's something much more divine in the kind of growth of yourself as an artist that it's not your place to know what's going to be."
Sharing a private thought, she admits: "I don't think I've ever said it out loud, but I have always thought to myself, 'What if the things that you have done are not the thing that you're most known for? That there's something coming'?"
Turning 50 next year, Tunstall's embraced change head on, helping transform 1995 film Clueless for the stage, alongside its creator Amy Heckerling.
Working in Hollywood for four decades and counting, Heckerling, who also directed Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Look Who's Talking, says "I always felt like the movie, while we were making it, kind of wanted to sing."
'It was really time to do something new'
It was a "wild ride" that Tunstall, who says she was "desperate to learn something new," was keen to be part of.
Busking as a student before joining bands in her early 20s, Tunstall says: "I've been I've been doing gigs and touring for a long time, and it was really time to do something new and, and this is just a dream project to do it with."
With the film's original soundtrack featuring hits from Radiohead, Coolio, the Lightning Seeds, Supergrass and the Beastie Boys, Tunstall says it was exciting to create songs for the "explosion of genre" that was the 1990s - a time when Nirvana and NSYNC jostled alongside each other in the charts, and the Spice Girls burst onto the worldwide scene.
Tunstall's approach? "Come up with a mega-mix feel, that it's the cassette tape playing in Cher's Jeep" and then merge it with the MTV music video visuals catching fire at the time.
'Enjoy the nostalgia and relax in the theatre'
Emma Flynn, who plays Cher Horowitz in the show, says it's the role of a lifetime having been a fan of the movie "since I was in the foetal position" and "pretty much off book" from day one.
Flynn says the show offers audiences an escape from some of the stresses of modern-day life.
"Watching people before social media and cell phones, just going to the Valley party and actually having to communicate. I think people enjoy that nostalgia. And I think it allows people to relax in the theatre too."
And Clueless isn't the only classic movie getting a musical makeover.
The Devil Wears Prada The Musical brings fashion to the West End, with music by Sir Elton John.
While the Mean Girls Broadway run was such a success, it got turned back into its own movie last year, taking over $100m at the global box office. The musical's now in the West End, becoming the fastest-selling show in the Dominion Theatre's history.
So, what's the appeal?
The shows already have a ready-made audience of fans, created by the original film.
They're familiar but different - building on the original narrative, taking well-loved characters and oft-repeated catchphrases - and using song and dance to expand on the movies' best-known scenes - to the delight of the audience.
Meanwhile, the success of streaming over the last two decades means older films are easy to find and re-watch for a new generation of fans.
There's the nostalgia factor too - looking back to a movie you loved as a child or teen means it's already won a special place in your heart, and you're much more likely to welcome it in for a second time.
'The 90s are on fire in popular culture'
And the shows are not just attracting familiar audiences, but fresh ones as well says actress Charlie Burn, who plays Cady Heron in Mean Girls The Musical.
While she says there are certain "anticipatory parts of the show where people know there are iconic lines coming up," she says there are also "parents with their kids at the stage door, that say, 'I never knew the musical, I never knew the movie, and I loved it'."
As for Clueless, Tunstall says it's a piece of luck that after years of work the musical has come to fruition "when the '90s are on fire again in popular culture", adding "a whole new generation of kids are really appreciating the culture of the '90s, and it just feels really perfect."
Cher's futuristic outfit generator may never have become a daily-dressing reality, and a Burn Book in the back of the closet would now be shared via an array of social media putdowns.
But the hefty dollop of nostalgia delivered by such shows is a song and dance welcomed by many across universally challenging times.