The chart week beginning Sunday 20^th August 2000 was supposed to be a Spice one-two. Victoria Beckham was to replace Mel C at the top of the charts with her (and Dane Bowers, and True Steppers) garage-influenced single ‘Out of Your Mind’. But as we all know by now, the path of true chart success never does run smooth…

Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love), by Spiller ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor (their 1^st and only #1s)

1 week, from 20^th – 27^th August 2000

For along came this incredibly catchy piece of nu-disco, from an Italian DJ and the lead singer of a little known indie band, to throw a groovy spanner in the works. Spiller, the DJ, had created the track in 1999, and named it after the Miami nightclub where he had first given it a spin, Groovejet. The backbone of the track is a sample of Carol William’s 1976 track ‘Love Is You’, and the vocals/lyrics were added by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, lead singer of Theaudience, and – once again involved in the unlikeliest of number ones – Mud’s Rob Davis.

The reasons why this unlikely dance track got caught up in one of the most famous chart races of all time with Posh Spice are various (and I might explore them in a future post). But I’d suggest that the most important reason is very simple: ‘Groovejet’ is the much better song.

It’s an effortlessly chic track, one that blends perfectly the need to be cool with the need to be accessible. It balances an authentic disco beat, some very ‘Year 2000’ production chops and swishes, and Ellis-Bextor’s beautifully detached vocals. It works as a chillout, by-the-pool track as much as it works as a floor-filler. It is retro, it is modern. It is disco, it is house. (Wikipedia lists it as ‘handbag house’, which is now my new favourite genre of all time…) It is, and this may be pure recency bias but who cares, the year’s best chart-topper.

My biggest problem with dance music is that it can sometimes get repetitive. Spiller avoids this by filling his track with lots of little touches to keep things busy, such as the strings in the old school middle-eight, and the hand drums at the end, not to mention the just silly enough aeroplane sound effect.

Back to release-week, then, where Victoria Beckham (and Dane Bowers and True Steppers) were announced to be leading the race midweek. Both women did promo, with the battle billed as ‘Posh Vs Posher’. In the end, Spiller and Sophie won out by 20,000 copies, and secured the highest weekly sales of the year so far. That was as good as it got for Spiller, who bookended his biggest smash with two #40 hits. But it set Sophie Ellis-Bextor up for much more solo success, including six Top 10 hits across the noughties (seven, if we count the two times that classic ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ has peaked, agonisingly, in the runners-up position…) Meanwhile, this was as close as Victoria Beckham got to a solo #1, and she remains the only Spice Girl not to manage one.