Sophie Ellis-Bextor reflects on Groovejet's impact on her career 20 years on from its release

Sophie Ellis-Bextor has reflected on the 20 years since the release of her smash dance hit, Groovejet, and her plans for a new version.

The 2000 song was released by Italian DJ Spiller with Ellis-Bextor on vocals, but she's said that at the time she didn't realise the impact it would have on her career.

The 41-year-old shared a photo still from the video, which was filmed in Bangkok, noting it had been two decades since it was shot.

Read more: Sophie Ellis-Bextor shows injuries after bike accident

"Little did I know back then how many places Groovejet would take me," she wrote. "At the time, it felt like a slightly crazy thing to do a dance tune. I’d been in an indie band up until then and dance music was a whole unknown."

The track was released in August 2000 and was in a famous chart battle for number one with Victoria Beckham's first solo track, Out Of Your Mind.

Groovejet ultimately took the top spot.

The mother-of-five noted she was "worried" about how the indie scene would respond to her involvement in a dance track and that she had felt a "bit burned" by the breakup of her band Theaudience which she had been vocalist for between 1996 to 1999.

"As it happens, I didn’t really like dance music (or at least I thought I didn’t) when I first heard the instrumental to the track but there was something about the music that I liked and I thought ‘why not?’. I think I needed something to shake things up a bit after I’d lost my record deal when I was 20," she explained.

Her first solo album released the following year, Read My Lips, proved to be a hit as it reached number two in the UK charts.

"Anyhoo since then I’ve jumped around from different genres a lot and it’s all thanks to the adventure I had with Groovejet. Not because it was such a successful tune - although that’s lovely of course - but because it taught me to follow my nose when it came to what I wanted to do with my singing."

Ellis-Bextor remarked on the different venues it had led her to perform in, including her recent kitchen discos.

She joked: "Thank you, Groovejet. You’re 20 now but you still live at home with your mum and I can’t see that changing any time soon."

Read more: Sophie Ellis-Bextor announces Kitchen Disco tour

The entertainer has recently announced a tour and album based on her lockdown kitchen discos. She's divulged that fans can expect to hear a new version of Groovejet she's recorded with James Wiltshire from DJ duo the Freemasons.

The Murder on the Dancefloor singer will be performing the eight date tour around the UK in 2021.