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Just years after Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up that Hill” became a surprise contemporary hit thanks to “Stranger Things,” another older song is getting an unexpected jolt of life. This time, it’s thanks to the 2023 dark comedy “Saltburn,” which is currently available to stream on Prime.
The song is 2001’s “Murder on the Dancefloor,” a dance-pop track by British singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Though the song is one of Ellis-Bextor’s biggest hits worldwide, it completely missed the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and only charted at no. 26 on the U.S. Dance Club Songs chart.
But a key (nude) dance sequence from “Saltburn” star Barry Keoghan has placed the song back into the zeitgeist — and here in the U.S., perhaps for the first time. This week, Ellis-Bextor made her Billboard Hot 100 debut with the song charting at no. 98.
According to Billboard, the 23 year-old song racked up 3.9 million streams in the U.S. (a 131% increase) and a 92% increase in sales in the week of Dec. 29 to Jan. 4. The song is also currently perched at no. 29 on Spotify’s global charts.
The “Saltburn” dance sequence has led to “Murder on the Dancefloor” being memed on TikTok, with the song being included in hundreds of thousands of videos. Users have been including the song over other dancing scenes, including Hugh Grant in “Love, Actually” and actress Jenna Dewan dancing in a hospital in a video captioned “POV: You’re an EMT arriving to the scene of the murder on the dancefloor.”
Ellis-Bextor, 44, recently told BBC News the song’s resurgence “feels really magical.”
“It’s a song I’ve been singing for over 20 years. I still love singing it. I love the way people react when I do it live,” said Ellis-Bextor. “But for new people to be discovering it, for it to be making new memories with people, is kind of beautiful.”
“Saltburn” is directed by Emerald Fennel (“Promising Young Woman”) and stars Keoghan (“Banshees of Inisherin”), Jacob Elordi (“Priscilla”) and Rosamund Pike (“I Care a Lot”). The film has received numerous accolades and Keoghan and Pike were both nominated for Golden Globes for their performances.
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