Songfacts®:

• This song about underhanded dance competition tactics was penned by Ellis-Bextor with the American singer-songwriter Gregg Alexander (under the pseudonym Alex Ander). Alexander, who was the mastermind behind the New Radicals ("You Get What You Give") won a Grammy for co-writing "The Game of Love" for Santana in 2003.
• The song became Ellis-Bextor's greatest hit internationally. It was the most-played song of 2002 in all of Europe and also went platinum in Australia, where it peaked at #3, staying in the Top Fifty for twenty weeks.
• The music video takes place at a dance contest, which contestant Ellis-Bextor is desperate to win. Canadian-born actor Colin Stinton, who played Neal Daniels in The Bourne Ultimatum, features as the main judge. Sophie Muller, who helmed the singer's previous video for "Take Me Home," directed the clip.
• This was used in the Eastenders episode where the Queen Vic burned down. Just before the fire started Ellis-Bextor could be heard singing "Gonna burn this goddamn house right down." She commented on her website: "I used to watch lots of Eastenders and I remember when I heard my first band Theaudience, being played in the show - it was a bit of an 'I've made it' moment!"
• The final scene of the 2023 comedy-thriller Saltburn shows Oxford student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) dancing throughout the Saltburn estate mansion in the nude to this song. Following its inclusion in the film, the Ellis-Bextor's pop hit went viral on TikTok and rocketed to #8 on the UK Singles chart. It also entered the US Hot 100 dated January 13, 2024, at #98, Ellis-Bextor's first song to land on the chart.
• Gregg Alexander originally wrote "Murder on the Dancefloor" as the intended first single for The New Radicals' 1998 album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed, Too.
  
  "There are two 'Murder on the Dancefloors': New Radicals' unheard record I gave Sophie an early cassette of, and Sophie's combining my rough lyrics with her lyrical genius," Alexander told Variety. "I wrote the music in my old Mustang in the '90s, [when] my car broke down. It was gonna be New Radicals' bawdy first single until I came up with 'You Get What You Give.'"
  
  "I dug both equally but spent so much producing this 'music in you' idea I worried I'd go broke finishing 'Murder,' too," he continued. Once Sophie got on mic, her magic owned it."
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor made her US TV debut when she performed "Murder On The Dancefloor" on the February 12, 2024 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
• Gregg Alexander's original "Murder On The Dancefloor" demo included the line: "I'm gonna make us hit the Hague. Once you hit the bong." When the song was given to Ellis-Bextor, she replaced the lyric with "I'll take you all the way. Stay another song."
• Before performing "Murder on the Dancefloor" at Le Bataclan in Paris on her 2024 European tour, Sophie Ellis-Bextor paid tribute to the victims of the horrific terrorist attack that took place there in November 2015. The 2015 attack, during an Eagles of Death Metal concert, killed 90 people and injured hundreds. The singer acknowledged the seriousness of the venue's history and the potentially insensitive title of her song in light of the tragedy.
  
  "It didn't feel right to me to just waltz into a song called 'Murder On The Dancefloor' without noting and paying tribute to the history," Ellis-Bextor told the crowd. "All I want to say is that 'Murder On The Dancefloor' is not a song with any evil in its heart."
  
  "The whole intention of that song, like this venue, is to bring joy and music onto the dancefloor," she continued. "So in tribute to that spirit, and in tribute to everybody who has ever danced right here at the Bataclan, this is 'Murder On The Dancefloor.'"
• David Guetta remixed the song in March 2024, transforming it into a high-energy club track.
• Australian guitar-pop duo Royel Otis covered "Murder on the Dancefloor" for Triple J's Like A Version segment in January 2024, bringing their own indie-pop sound and emotional style to the early 2000s dance anthem. Their rendition rapidly gained popularity online through streaming platforms like Spotify, YouTube, and TikTok, and it charted in several countries.
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor first saw Saltburn - complete with its now-infamous "Murder on the Dancefloor" scene - at a private London screening held at 10 in the morning, with half her family in tow: "My oldest boy, my mum, my brother, his then very new girlfriend, my husband" she told The Guardian.
  
  A friend tried to warn her it was "quite extreme." Sophie, unfazed, thought, How bad could it be? Then she saw it. "I'm like, come on. But, yeah, it was."