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‘In January, it was the most heard song on Earth!’: the amazing story behind Murder on the Dancefloor

Adored by the Obamas and worshipped by Joni Mitchell, songwriter Gregg Allexander looks back at Murder on the Dancefloor, given a new life by Saltburn, and You Get What You Give

So strong was his feeling that he’d made his defining statement that he soon disbanded New Radicals to focus on songwriting for others, including hits such as Ronan Keating’s Life Is a Rollercoaster, Santana’s Grammy-winning The Game of Love and Texas’s Inner Smile. Photograph: Tim Roney/Getty ImagesHowever, one fan of his debut was Danielle Brisebois, a child actor turned musician who was in the original cast of Annie on Broadway aged eight – her sampled voice appears on Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life. The jokey digs at “Beck, Hanson, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson” were the result of “naive curiosity, whether a pop song had the audacity to go after bankers, the FDA, health insurance companies and corruption and include a throwaway lyric about three or four artists.

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