In 1998 the Italian DJ/producer Cristiano Spiller visited a Miami nightclub called Groovejet. He was inspired and returned home to create an instrumental record in its honor based around the bass line of an obscure 1977 disco track, "Love Is You" by Carol Williams. In 2000 he re-recorded it with vocals by Sophie Ellis-Bextor (formerly of the alternative group The Audience). It is claimed that Sarah Cracknell of St. Etienne was the first choice vocalist but was unavailable at the time. Songwriter Rob Davies, formerly of 1970s glam rock group Mud wrote the chorus and Spiller asked Sophie to write a verse.
This entered the UK charts at #1, selling 202,500 singles, creating a media frenzy by just beating Spice Girl Victoria Beckham's track "Out Of Your Mind," which sold 181,000 copies. "Groovejet" finally sold over 2,000,000 copies worldwide reaching #1 also in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
Spiller recalled, "All the time I was playing 'Groovejet,' many people kept saying to me, 'when are you going to put some vocals on it?' I thought about it and liked the idea of putting a sweet white voice like Sophie's on it." Sophie Ellis-Bextor said, "I didn't really like the chorus. The line 'If this ain't love, why does it feel so good' was about this girl being indecisive and I didn't really like that dithery mentality. What I tried to do with the verse was 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." (both quotes from 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh)
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