FEATURE:
Groovelines
Spiller (ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor) – Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)
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THIS single is one I remember…
IN THIS PHOTO: Cristiano Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor in 2000, when Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) was released/PHOTO CREDIT: Ray Tang/Rex/Shutterstock
coming out and I was instantly hooked! On 14th August, 2000, this incredible song came out. Written by Cristiano Spiller, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Rob Davis, Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) is one of the biggest songs of the 2000s. Arriving in the first summer of that decade, it is this blissful track that takes me back twenty-five years. I was seventeen when it came out and I was transfixed by it. Such a catchy and evocative song, it was the first time I had heard of Sophie Ellis-Bextor. She has gone on to enjoy this incredible career. Spiller was also new to me. Though less prolific than Ellis-Bextor, he cannot be called a one-hit wonder. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) went up against Victoria Beckham’s debut single, Out of Your Mind. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) won the battle! I am going to get to some information about the song soon. It was a track that started as an instrumental. Fearful that it was tor repetitive and would not be played on radio, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, formerly with the band Theaudience, was brought in to write lyrics and sing. Rob Davis slightly reworked the lyrics and came up with the song’s subtitle. Ellis-Bextor’s hook was “And so it goes... how does it feel so good?". Davis replaced it with “If this ain't love... why does it feel so good?".
On 8th September, twenty years after the song was released, Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor discussed the making of Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) with The Guardian. As is mentioned in the article, this classic was “the first song ever to be played on an iPod. But, as its creators reveal, the demo was left in a car – then tossed on to a floor and forgotten”:
“Cristiano Spiller, DJ, producer and songwriter
This was one of the fastest tracks I ever produced. It was 1999, the night before I was due to fly to Miami for the Winter Music Conference, where all aspiring DJs and producers went. I was trying to stay awake for my early-morning flight and put on an unreleased version of Carol Williams’ Love Is You. I ended up sampling it and, in a couple of hours, I had Groovejet more or less written.
I was picked up at Miami by my friend Boris Dlugosch, who was always looking for the next smash. I put the track on, but we started talking and didn’t pay much attention to it. He dropped me at my hotel, but I forgot about the CD – my only copy – and left it in his car. That night, he was DJ-ing at a club called Groovejet. When I arrived, he had just played it and the place had gone crazy. Everyone wanted to hear it again – and again. Based on the incredible reaction, it felt natural to name the track after the club.
I knew it had to have lyrics, though. I had no money to get the sample cleared and the labels didn’t want to risk paying the advance because they didn’t think it would recoup the cost. So I sent promotional copies to the best record shops in Europe, and soon all the tastemaker DJs were playing it. Suddenly, all the labels wanted to pay the advance.
I signed to EMI’s Positiva Records and we started talking vocals. I wanted an original, charismatic voice, not the classic disco-diva singer, which was so over-done. From a pile of demos, Sophie’s beautiful voice immediately stood out.
I was really into house and underground clubbing. I had no idea how the pop world worked. I didn’t understand how important the charts were or what Top of the Pops was. It was a completely crazy time but also a dream come true: I ended up DJing at the best clubs and parties around the world.
Groovejet gave me so much freedom – it meant I never had to do another pop hit. I could just keep on making music for clubs.
PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Roney/Getty Images
Sophie Ellis-Bextor, , singer and songwriter
When I first listened to the instrumental track, I stopped it halfway through and thought: “Why have they sent me dance music? I don’t like dance music!” A couple of weeks later, I was tidying my flat and found the CD on the floor. I played it again and this time I thought it really had something.
I’d just come out of my band, theaudience. We’d been part of the whole NME/Melody Maker indie scene, but elements of that world were tough, especially the press. I was only 19 but they were always quite nasty and never particularly supportive. Groovejet was a breath of fresh air, a brilliant way of turning the page. The dance world didn’t intimidate me – it was welcoming and I felt at home.
‘Everyone was talking about who would be No 1’ …Spiller and Ellis-Bextor in 2000, when Groovejet was released. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex/Shutterstock
I agreed to sing on the track and went into the studio with my own ideas and wrote the verses quickly. Eventually, they spliced my verses with a brilliant chorus by Rob Davis. Mine was rubbish in comparison! The track’s magic is in his chorus and Spiller’s instrumental. I was so happy to be the voice on it.
The song was everywhere. It was on heavy rotation on Radio 1 months before release. Things really blew up when it got the same release date as Victoria Beckham and Dane Bowers’ Out of Your Mind – Victoria’s first release post-Spice Girls. Suddenly we were on the front pages and even the Six O’Clock News. Everyone was talking about who would be No 1.
The day before the result came in, I was waiting for a bus and thinking about rushing into Woolworths to buy a copy because I’d heard there were only 500 copies in it. In the end, Groovejet reached No 1, outselling Out of Your Mind by 20,000. I never did make that trip to Woolworths!
Having a song that people are really fond of is a gift. I’m still really happy to sing it. It gave me the confidence to genre-hop. When my son discovered it was the first song ever to be played on an iPod, he finally looked impressed by something his mum had done”.
This feature from 2021 is fascinating. We get to learn more about a track that has endured for quarter of a century. Sophie Ellis-Bextor has a good relationship with it. Not sick of it, like some artists who always get associated with songs and have to live with that, she is good friends with it. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) still sounds so fresh and sun-kissed. It is one of the ultimate summer tracks:
“The finishing touches
It wasn't just a vocal track that Ellis-Bextor signed herself up for. She also had the opportunity to help write the song's vocal melody.
"They were looking for someone to sing the track, but they were also looking for a top line: they didn't have the song yet," she says.
"So, I wrote a song. I think another four or five writers had also written pitches for the song.
"In the end, they took a chorus from this really brilliant songwriter called Rob Davis. They put his chorus with my verses, sort of spliced together.
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That brilliant chorus was always the best option and Ellis-Bextor has no ill-feelings about her option being shunned.
"It wasn't very good," she says of her idea for the refrain.
"They picked a much better chorus. I think Rob's chorus is brilliant. His one was definitely stronger."
Though, at the time, the singer did have one reservation about that chorus, and she ain't afraid to admit it.
"I was quite uncomfortable about the fact that the 'if this ain't love' had the word 'ain't' in it," she says.
"Because it was not part of my normal vernacular. I mean, that's so ridiculous, but I was 20 and I just had lots and lots of rules.
"You know when you're younger and you just live like that. 'These are things I like, these are things that are cool, that's not me'… I guess it's also figuring out what kind of artist you want to be and what's important to you.
"It shows you that you can think things are important and they're just really not. You've got to learn these lessons."
Cristiano Spiller, the Italian producer who crafted the track, was not a huge part of the creative process by the time Ellis-Bextor became involved.
"To be honest, I didn't spend a lot of time with Spiller," she says. "He came for that week to record and do some press shots. Then he came for a week just before the song came out.
"He seemed alright! He was friendly enough. He didn't have tons of English, but he seemed very well meaning.
"I think what he did with the track is really clever."
What he did with the track was to breathe new life into an old disco jam. It's not an uncommon way to make dance music, but it does require a deft touch.
"The song that 'Groovejet' is taken from is a song called 'Love Is You', which was released in 1977 by a singer called Carol Williams.
"It's a really beautiful song, but he took some really clever bits to sort of create the track of 'Groovejet'. He's a talented guy, Spiller."
YouTubeCarol Williams Love Is You
"It is a really cool song. I did a cover of it a couple years back, I quite liked this sort of weird circular nature of it. There's a nice serendipity there.
"It's a real puppy dog of a disco song. It just wants to be liked."
As for the name? It comes from the name of a Miami nightclub. Ellis-Bextor finds it as curious as you do.
"Spiller had a friend that was DJing at this big club called Groovejet," she says. "They played it there and there was a big reaction from the crowd. So, he's like, 'Let's call it Groovejet'.
"I mean, to be honest, to me it's quite weird. because I've got such a massive relationship with the song, but I've got zero relationship with Groovejet itself. I've never been there. I don't even know what it looks like.
"Does anyone even know it's called that? Or do they just think it's called 'If This Ain't Love'? It's quite funny if you think about it. The word Groovejet is not featured in the song at all."
What came next
'Groovejet' was massive.
In fact, 'Groovejet' is still massive. It sold bucketloads upon its release and has had tens of millions of streams across all platforms. It remains an iconic reflection of what dance and pop music sounded like at the turn of the century.
"That song just sort of changed everything," Ellis-Bextor says.
"I mean, there's the obvious stuff, like the fact it was commercially very successful. It ended up going to number one in I don't even know how many countries: like 11 or 12 countries.
"It was extraordinary for me to go from one summer with my indie band that was falling apart, and then the next summer I'm going to Ibiza and singing at end of season parties in front of thousands of club goers, and just being introduced to that whole world.
"It's the first time I'd had a song go to places that I'll never go to. That was that was an extraordinary idea to me, like I could fly somewhere new and they'd be like, 'Oh, we know that song'."
Commercial success was grand. But it's the personal growth that Ellis-Bextor considers the greatest gift the song gave her.
"Most importantly, it shook up and changed the way I saw myself and the possibilities and options that I had.
"I thought, 'Right, you know what, if I trust my instinct, I can actually embrace a lot of different genres. I don't have to stick to indie music'.
"I love guitar music. It is still part of the map of how I make music most of the time, but it basically made me embrace the fact that, if you peel back my layers, I'm basically a pop kid.
"From then I thought, 'Okay, it's open season. I can dip my toe in lots of different water now'”.
You can find out details about Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s demo for the gem of a song. It has this amazing story, and I think the collaboration with Spiller works really well and they have this chemistry. I think the video is one of my favourite things. Ellis-Bextor and Spiller never meeting until near the end. Them both in Bangkok and never crossing paths until late on. This feature is Spiller revealing the complete story. He discusses the video and how that came to be:
“When it was time to decide what to do with the video, I honestly had no idea, so Positiva commissioned a bunch of different treatments from production companies, most of them were a bit too serious, but the script that stood out was titled Big in Hong Kong as a reference to Big in Japan, it was much more down to earth as it was basically making fun of my height, which is something I’ve always been comfortable with, also Sophie’s role was nicely balanced with mine.
The final location became Bangkok. I was, of course, excited for filming my first ever music video in such a beautiful city but honestly it was also kind of shocking, it was July during the rainy season, incredibly hot, wet and polluted by the heavy traffic. The first day I got stomach flu probably from the water used for ice cubes and I was especially surprised by the amount of sex tourism I witnessed around the streets during those few days. Thankfully our German director (Frank Nesemann) focused on the city's brighter side, with the whole crew, he did a great job.
Fun fact #1: To go to Thailand I met in Paris with Stefano, my Italian manager, we had to take a direct flight to Bangkok with Air France during the final match of UEFA Euro 2000, ITALY vs FRANCE. Stefano was really into soccer and on the plane, it was 300 French versus us 2 Italians, the pilot (also French) was receiving updates via radio and was giving commentary during the flight, Italy pretty much dominated the whole game and were ahead by one goal, I played it cool but my manager could barely contain himself, at minute 90 he was already celebrating, then France scored so we went into extra time and they won it in the 103rd minute with a golden goal. The plane went crazy, everyone doing chants to our faces, so my manager wasn’t in the best of moods for the next 48 hours.
Fun fact #2: the director had asked me to bring over my favourite clothes for the video. So, I travelled with a big suitcase full of clothes (mainly t-shirts), we then met in my hotel room and I showed him everything. He didn’t like one single piece, so we only kept my shoes and they sent someone shopping for clothes for a 2.08 m (6.8 ft) tall dude… in Bangkok!
Fun fact #3: when I ask the taxi driver to turn the music up in the taxi, if you read my lips it looks like I am swearing in Venetian dialect, for 20 years I get asked by my Venetian acquaintances for confirmation about that, so once and for all: NO, I was just asking him to turn up the music!”.
14th August, 2000 was a big date in music history. Not only because Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) was released and took people by surprise. It also was in this chart battle and won. Still so popular and played to this day, I know we will be discussing this single for many years to come. Put the track on today and…
PLAY it loud!