Murder on the Dancefloor

Gregg Alexander wrote the hook and melody of "Murder on the Dancefloor" in 1994, during a moment of frustration when his Ford Mustang would not start. Realising he would miss a night at the Detroit house clubs, he picked up an acoustic guitar left in the back seat and began singing the line about it being murder on the dancefloor. He later described the words to The Guardian as a dummy lyric sung for fun that he could not better. In 1998 he considered recording the song with his group New Radicals for their album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, but chose "You Get What You Give" instead. After disbanding the group in 1999, he moved to Notting Hill in London and met Sophie Ellis-Bextor, giving her his unfinished demo. The two re-tooled parts of the song and completed the lyrics together later that year.

Produced by Alexander and Matt Rowe, the finished track appeared on Ellis-Bextor's debut album Read My Lips and was released as a single on 3 December 2001 by Polydor Records. It peaked at number two on the UK singles chart and spent 13 weeks in the top 40, becoming a top-10 hit worldwide. In Australia it reached number three, stayed in the top 50 for 20 weeks, earned platinum accreditation from ARIA, and finished as the 12th-highest-selling single of 2002. It was reportedly the most played song in Europe in 2002.

The song found a second life after appearing in the 2023 film Saltburn. In January 2024 it returned to number two on the UK singles chart, giving Ellis-Bextor her first top-10 appearance there since 2007, and it entered the US Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in her career, peaking at number 51. That same year, New Radicals released their own version, and Alexander's demo appeared on streaming services under the group's name.