Before she committed murder on the dance floor, but after scoring a handful of UK chart hits with the indie rock band Theaudience, Sophie Ellis-Bextor was the voice and one of the minds behind a massive international dance hit. “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” dramatically altered the course of Ellis-Bextor’s career, but it was a change she initially wanted nothing to do with. Having built her reputation as an indie rock vocalist, the idea of being a dance-pop diva was downright unappealing to her.
Just as Italian DJ and producer Cristiano Spiller changed Ellis-Bextor’s life by inviting her to co-write and sing on “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love),” his life was changed by an on-the-fly decision made by a fellow DJ and producer. “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” was one of the biggest dance hits of the early 2000s, and it was indirectly responsible for one of the most popular dance tracks of 2024—Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor.” It is conceivable that neither song would have ever been made if not for a seemingly random series of events.
A South Beach Sensation
There is a clear throughline between “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” and “Murder on the Dancefloor,” though it took more than two decades for the latter to find mainstream crossover success in the U.S. To trace the roots of “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love), we have to travel more than two decades backwards. Carol Williams had a minor disco hit in 1977 with “Love Is You,” but somehow, it wound up in the hands of Spiller 22 years later. In March 1999, just before heading to the Winter Music Conference in Miami, he decided to create an instrumental that was based on samples from “Love Is You.” He burned his demo onto a CD and took it with him to Miami.
In a video interview for DJ Mag, Spiller explained the series of fortuitous decisions that gave “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” its initial momentum. His friend, the German DJ/producer Boris Dlugosch, picked him up at the airport in Miami, and Spiller put his new demo in the CD player. Spiller and Dlugosch did not discuss the demo during their drive, but after receiving compliments on the song from several clubgoers that night, Spiller soon learned that Dlugosch played the demo during a DJ gig. The South Beach club where Dlugosch—unbeknownst to Spiller—debuted the song was called Groove Jet. Suddenly, Spiller’s song had a following and a name.
“I Was Actually Insulted. Quite Insulted”
Spiller and his label, Positiva Records, wanted the track to have lyrics, so Positiva reached out to several vocalists to record vocal demos. Ellis-Bextor was one of them, and at first, she was less than excited. In a video interview with British comedian Richard Herring, Ellis-Bextor said, “I was sent this instrumental track with a view to potentially singing. I was actually insulted. Quite insulted. I’m an indie kid, why are you sending me a house track?” She was so upset she threw the CD across the room and then forgot about it.
Later on, Ellis-Bextor was doing some cleaning and came across the unmarked CD, initially not knowing it was the one Positiva had sent her. She gave it a listen and, this time around, realized she liked the song.
In addition to providing vocals for “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love),” Ellis-Bextor wrote the lyrics for the verses. She told Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh for their book 1000 UK #1 Hits she didn’t like the refrain If this ain’t love / Why does it feel so good? written by Rob Davis. Ellis-Bextor thought it made her character sound too indecisive, so she wrote the verses “to set the about the idea that, she knew the answer to the question isn’t love, it’s lust, so it’s all about a holiday romance.”
The Impact of “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)”
While Spiller and Ellis-Bextor would go on to have multiple Top-40 entries on the UK Official Singles Chart, “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” would be the only No. 1 single for both artists, topping the chart in August 2000. It would also reach the top of the pop singles chart in Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland, and the No. 1 spot on the dance charts in the UK, Australia, and Ireland. The song reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart. It was also nominated for a Brit Award for British Single of the Year in 2001.
Ellis-Bextor’s foray into dance pop would not be a one-time event, despite her initial reluctance to switch genres. The songs on her first solo album Read My Lips followed in a similar vein to “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love),” and her next three albums were firmly in the dance-pop genre as well. These four albums provided 10 of her 11 Top-40 UK singles as a solo artist, including “Murder on the Dancefloor,” which reached No. 2 in 2001. It also landed on Billboard’s Dance Single Sales chart in 2003, peaking at No. 9.
“Murder on the Dancefloor” would rise to greater heights after being featured in the 2023 film Saltburn. In 2024, it returned to No. 2 in the UK, topped Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart for four weeks, and made its first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 51. It’s hard to imagine Ellis-Bextor would have made “Murder on the Dancefloor” and enjoyed its great success without first agreeing to make “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” with Spiller.
For a song that could have easily gotten lost in a DJ’s car while driving around Miami, “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” has had an incredibly lasting impact. And how good is it? You can ask the millions who continue to stream the song more than two decades after its release. Or you could think about how it coaxed a dyed-in-the-wool “indie kid” into pursuing a lengthy and successful dance-pop career.
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