{"id":18669,"date":"2024-01-11T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=18669"},"modified":"2024-01-11T08:12:28","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T08:12:28","slug":"more-murder-on-the-dancefloor-for-sophie-ellis-baxter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2024\/01\/11\/more-murder-on-the-dancefloor-for-sophie-ellis-baxter\/","title":{"rendered":"more murder on the dancefloor for SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

America has finally acknowledged<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SOPHIE ELLIS BEXTOR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

as Norman Warwick has learned from Paste<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The polarizing, divisive film Saltburn<\/em> has reminded us why \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d is the best club song of the 21st century. So proclaimed Matt Mitchell, one of the many excellent writers who write for Paste on-line magazine. That may have even become true of the the UK audiences in the 2020\u00b4s, as Sophie seemed to become less of a rock star than a friendly, familiar face on chatty celebrity shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before autumn 2023, you probably didn\u2019t know who Sophie Ellis-Bextor was – especially if you\u2019re not English and especially<\/em> if you\u2019re not a millennial or older. She\u2019s never made an appearance on a US chart, but Ellis-Bextor\u2019s music has been around since the 1990s, though\u2014when she fronted a band called The Audience and then went solo at the turn of the 21st century. Between 2000 and 2007, she had nine Top 25 songs in the UK, including the #1 hit \u201cGroovejet (If This Ain\u2019t Love)\u201d she made with Spiller. In 2015, it was revealed that \u201cGroovejet\u201d is the best-selling vinyl single since the turn of the millennium. It\u2019s safe to say that this recent resurgence around Ellis-Bextor\u2019s work is not one of divine happenstance. No, her music has been on many radars for a while, just not in the United States. But now, finally, she is getting the global attention due that she\u2019s been so properly owed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, the second single from Ellis-Bextor\u2019s debut album Read My Lips<\/em>, \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor,\u201d has exploded in popularity\u2014all thanks to its inclusion at the end of Emerald Fennell\u2019s divisive new film, Saltburn<\/a><\/em>. Whether you were famously seated for the flick or have seen the mirage of post-viewing TikToks or something in-between, you\u2019ve heard \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d at least once in the last two months. Of course, nothing can top Ellis-Bextor\u2019s awe-inspiring, generationally mystifying grooves sound tracking a scene where Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) elaborately dances naked across the halls of the Saltburn mansion he has just inherited through the Catton family fortune. Bare ass, floppy cock, lines of coke and dimly lit halls included, it\u2019s one of the most memorable scenes of any film from 2023\u2014a feat in itself, given how the sensationalism of Fennell\u2019s vision has superseded the plot, substance and emotional resonance of the film itself; a rare trifecta of aesthetic over substance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I cannot get on TikTok without bearing witness to a Saltburn<\/em> meme or reaction video, even though the movie has been out since mid-November. (Editor\u2019s Note: This is my own fault, I am Saltburn<\/em>-pilled to a delirious degree). Because of its recent addition to Prime Video, it\u2019s become much more accessible, too, and, whether it\u2019s daughters convincing their families to watch the movie during the holidays or a hilariously apt cap-cut about Keoghan\u2019s character\u2019s escapades (grave fucking, blood-play and grandiose, criminal deceit all included), \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d is now always nearby. It\u2019s not new territory for a film or television show to bring fresh excitement from a new generation to a song that\u2019s more than two decades old. I mean, look at what Stranger Things<\/em> did for Kate Bush\u2019s \u201cRunning Up That Hill\u201d in 2022<\/a>. The power of the internet, streaming and nostalgia is a heavy cocktail\u2014and \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d is just the latest all-time banger to get a retrospective star-treatment. And like the conversations around Bush\u2019s masterpiece, it\u2019s time I state the obvious: \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d is the best dance song of the last 25 years. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a close race, really. The only competition, to me, is either Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s \u201cVirgo\u2019s Groove\u201d or Robyn\u2019s \u201cDancing On My Own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fennell using \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d in Saltburn<\/em>\u2014just as she did with MGMT\u2019s \u201cTime to Pretend,\u201d Bloc Party\u2019s \u201cThis Modern Love\u201d and Pet Shop Boys\u2019 \u201cRent\u201d\u2014was done as a means of sentimentality, or a makeshift high-brow way of putting accessible pop and indie rock music into a film that has a focus so deftly positioned on upper class possessions, attitudes and the fragility of old-fashioned materialism. Whatever you feel towards Fennell and her writing, there\u2019s no denying that the music in Saltburn<\/em> was done with a precious intentionality. And, like \u201cRunning Up That Hill,\u201d \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d has a significance that exists beyond the gaudiness of the frames it illuminates. It\u2019s as much a plot device as the infamous bathtub drain or the Saltburn Estate maze. But I\u2019m not here to tell you how great \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d is, though. You already know it\u2019s sensational and massively catchy. It went platinum in Australia, was the 12th-highest-selling single of 2002 and was reported by the Daily Telegraph<\/em> as the most-played song in Europe that same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I am here to say is that Read My Lips<\/em> is the most underrated dance record of this century\u2014and, perhaps, the best modern attempt at disco altogether. It was produced by Moby, Blur bassist Alex James and New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, which is just a murderers\u2019 row of names to put behind any record, let alone a debut. Read My Lips<\/em> is the kind of album that is a star-making turn, and that\u2019s what it was for Ellis-Bextor. It\u2019s certified 3x platinum in the UK, to no one\u2019s surprise, and produced four Top 15 hits (\u201cTake Me Home,\u201d \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor,\u201d \u201cGet Over You\u201d \/ \u201cMove This Mountain\u201d and \u201cMusic Gets the Best of Me\u201d)\u2014three of them peaking in the Top 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read My Lips<\/em> is packed with stadium-sized theatricality. It\u2019s the kind of nu-disco joint that, if not executed perfectly, will come across too campy for its own good. What\u2019s fascinating to me is that, at the time, critics were pretty split down the middle on the record. Q Magazine<\/em> didn\u2019t believe that the project stood up as tall as \u201cGroovejet\u201d had two years prior, while The Guardian<\/em> claimed<\/a> that it was a \u201csophisticated package\u201d with little fun to be had. AllMusic<\/em> called it<\/a> a \u201cdisappointing debut.\u201d Likewise, Read My Lips<\/em> didn\u2019t quite garner much attention in the states. Yahoo! Music<\/em> reviewed it, giving out a 5\/10 score. Andrew Arora from Blue Coupe<\/em> placed the album somewhere on a spectrum<\/a> bookended by Pet Shop Boys and Parallel Lines<\/em>. I think that assessment is an accurate one, though Ellis-Bextor\u2019s work has a cinematic architecture more akin to the former.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I hope that more contemporary re-assessments will soften and, finally, embrace just how brilliant Read My Lips<\/em> really is. With the consistent undercurrent of post-disco and revivalist tunes hitting streaming services, there may not be a better moment for Ellis-Bextor than right now. \u201cMusic Gets the Best of Me\u201d is a stirringly charming tune, with a rhythmic beat that is as muted as something you might hear on an Avalanches record like Since I Left You<\/em> or Wildflower<\/em><\/a>. You can hear Moby\u2019s DJ influence across the entire project, as many of the arrangements feel like collages or samples dug up from forgotten albums. In that sense, \u201cIs It Any Wonder\u201d flickers sublimely and swirls in a kaleidoscope of piano-driven, digital beats that provide the type of electro-ballad euphoria that is so gravely missing from contemporary dance scenes. And there are inflections in Ellis-Bextor\u2019s singing that might sound familiar, too, largely because artists like Lady Gaga also possess them. It\u2019s an example found largely in the work of musicians who have a stark understanding of just how crucial of an instrument a voice can be\u2014company mostly kept by pop musicians, and understandably so. Her performance is a composite of the heavenliness of Audrey Hepburn and the confidence of Debbie Harry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A track like \u201cGet over You\u201d\u2014which was included in the 2002 reissue of the album\u2014still sounds timeless. It could\u2019ve topped a chart in 1984, 2004 and 2014. On the other hand, \u201cMove This Mountain\u201d and \u201cBy Chance\u201d have the kind of Y2K electro-pop polish that doesn\u2019t really exist anymore in the musical zeitgeist. But that doesn\u2019t mean the former is any less gripping when it plays right before \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor,\u201d or that the latter isn\u2019t a cosmic affair that toes the line between teen drama montage and campy prestige bliss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sure, you might look at this article and not understand why, given Sophies (left)<\/em><\/strong> successes in the UK, I would even dare to claim that her work is \u201cgetting its due.\u201d I hear you on that. But I think, as an American, it\u2019s easy for so many incredible international pop stars to go unnoticed here in the States. Not every artist can be post-Moloko R\u00f3is\u00edn Murphy and make dance records that cross the Atlantic with ease. Ellis-Bextor\u2019s music never quite landed here\u2014well, before November 2023 at least. Can you imagine how much healing might have happened had we been gifted the pleasures of her cover of Cher\u2019s \u201cTake Me Home\u201d in 2001? It\u2019s one of the most beautiful dance songs I\u2019ve ever heard, and quite possibly one of the best dance covers of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellis-Bextor\u2019s story is a different outcome than what Kate Bush went through a year-and-a-half ago; \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d is not going to have the Billboard<\/em> chart resurgence of \u201cRunning Up That Hill,\u201d but that doesn\u2019t mean that what we\u2019re witnessing\u2014through Gen-Z\u2019s obsessive, numbers-spiking tendencies and the virality of modern-day internet\u2014isn\u2019t some kind of miracle. I mean, \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d has been streamed over 235 million times on Spotify. Ellis-Bextor\u2019s second-most-streamed song is \u201cNot Giving Up On Love,\u201d which has 23 million plays. The Saltburn<\/em> effect is real and it has, thankfully, put millions of ears on Ellis-Bextor\u2019s music once again. She put out a dance record in June called HANNA<\/em> and it\u2019s quite good (\u201cBreaking the Circle\u201d is anthemic and masterful, especially). More than 20 years have passed since Read My Lips<\/em> but Ellis-Bextor hasn\u2019t missed a beat. On New Year\u2019s Eve, she posted a video of herself recreating the Saltburn<\/em> finale scene<\/a>, and she was even present on the red carpet at the film\u2019s premiere and performed at a special screening in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the way that \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d has delighted people is, I think, a mark of what great pop music can do\u2014be it by itself or in conversation with an unforgettable moment on-screen. The fact that Saltburn<\/em> has put people in seats more than once (I had the pleasure of seeing it multiple times, the second of which I sat next to a group of people who had all watched it no less than three times) in America is a little dash of good fortune; the newfound embrace of \u201cMurder on the Dancefloor\u201d here in the States (and the continued love for the song globally) is a prime argument for how pop music can never lose its footing when the stars align. The movies aren\u2019t dead yet and neither is the brilliance of Sophie Ellis-Bextor. As we ride into 2024, I\u2019d say those are two pretty great truths to carry with us. And we better not kill the groove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

acknowledgements<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The primary sources for this piece was published by Paste print and on line media Matt Mitchell was its lead author and other authors and titles have been attributed in our text wherever possible<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images employed have been taken from on line sites only where  categorised as  images free to use.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a more comprehensive detail of our attribution policy see our for reference only post on 7th<\/sup> April 2023  entitled Aspirations And Attributions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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