Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something to knowledge base
Content stats: 0 posts, 0 articles, 0 media, 0 notes
Members stats: 0 subscribers, 0 contributors, 0 moderators, 0 supporters
Subscribers
Supporters
Contributors
Moderators
Hub AI
Virtual Insanity AI simulator
(@Virtual Insanity_simulator)
Hub AI
Virtual Insanity AI simulator
(@Virtual Insanity_simulator)
Virtual Insanity
"Virtual Insanity" is a song by English funk and acid jazz band Jamiroquai, released on 19 August 1996 by Sony Soho Square as the second single from their third studio album, Travelling Without Moving (1996). The song was written by Jay Kay and Toby Smith, and produced by Al Stone. Its music video, directed by Jonathan Glazer, was released in September 1996, garnering ten nominations and winning four, including for Video of the Year, at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. The music video has since become an Internet meme.
"Virtual Insanity" was a number-one hit in Iceland and reached number three on the UK Singles Chart. As well as becoming a top-10 hit in Finland, Ireland, and Italy, the song also climbed to number 38 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and becoming one of their biggest US hits. The song also earned the band a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.
The song's lyrics took inspiration from a walk in an underground city in Sendai, Japan, by singer Jay Kay and the band's didgeridoo player, Wallis Buchanan, with Kay writing: "Everything was covered in snow and there was absolutely no one about. [We took] these stairs that led down to this whole underground city … with all the color and noise you get in Japanese streets." The song's title is a play off virtual reality.
Initially recorded as a rough demo, it was only after the label requested a single for Travelling Without Moving that the song was fully realised and was the last track to be properly recorded. The song has a piano opening with "buoyant keyboards and soaring strings." The riff continues throughout the song.
Thematically, the lyrics are concerned with issues like overpopulation, human genetic enhancement, artificial intelligence uprising, eugenics, and ecological collapse.
The first B-side of the single is the song "Do U Know Where You're Coming From", in collaboration with M-Beat. It was released as a single earlier in 1996. The second B-side of the single is "Bullet".
In the beginning of the song's album version, a sound that is sampled from the 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien appears. It is the sound sequence when the S.O.S. signal appears on the screens of the spaceship Nostromo at the start of the film. The album version is longer, including the addition of extra vocals and a bridge.
The song received favorable reviews from music critics. Scottish Aberdeen Press and Journal viewed it as "cool if lyrically trite". Justin Chadwick from Albumism said that the "midtempo, piano-driven groove" finds the singer "lamenting the proliferation of technology at the expense of human connection and preservation of our planet", as best evidenced in the chorus with lines such as, "Always seem to, be governed by this love we have / For useless, twisting, our new technology / Oh, now there is no sound—for we all live underground". He added, "While the song itself reflected Jamiroquai's more mature and polished sound at the time, it was the accompanying video unveiled the following month that became the band's transformative, watershed moment."
Virtual Insanity
"Virtual Insanity" is a song by English funk and acid jazz band Jamiroquai, released on 19 August 1996 by Sony Soho Square as the second single from their third studio album, Travelling Without Moving (1996). The song was written by Jay Kay and Toby Smith, and produced by Al Stone. Its music video, directed by Jonathan Glazer, was released in September 1996, garnering ten nominations and winning four, including for Video of the Year, at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. The music video has since become an Internet meme.
"Virtual Insanity" was a number-one hit in Iceland and reached number three on the UK Singles Chart. As well as becoming a top-10 hit in Finland, Ireland, and Italy, the song also climbed to number 38 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and becoming one of their biggest US hits. The song also earned the band a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.
The song's lyrics took inspiration from a walk in an underground city in Sendai, Japan, by singer Jay Kay and the band's didgeridoo player, Wallis Buchanan, with Kay writing: "Everything was covered in snow and there was absolutely no one about. [We took] these stairs that led down to this whole underground city … with all the color and noise you get in Japanese streets." The song's title is a play off virtual reality.
Initially recorded as a rough demo, it was only after the label requested a single for Travelling Without Moving that the song was fully realised and was the last track to be properly recorded. The song has a piano opening with "buoyant keyboards and soaring strings." The riff continues throughout the song.
Thematically, the lyrics are concerned with issues like overpopulation, human genetic enhancement, artificial intelligence uprising, eugenics, and ecological collapse.
The first B-side of the single is the song "Do U Know Where You're Coming From", in collaboration with M-Beat. It was released as a single earlier in 1996. The second B-side of the single is "Bullet".
In the beginning of the song's album version, a sound that is sampled from the 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien appears. It is the sound sequence when the S.O.S. signal appears on the screens of the spaceship Nostromo at the start of the film. The album version is longer, including the addition of extra vocals and a bridge.
The song received favorable reviews from music critics. Scottish Aberdeen Press and Journal viewed it as "cool if lyrically trite". Justin Chadwick from Albumism said that the "midtempo, piano-driven groove" finds the singer "lamenting the proliferation of technology at the expense of human connection and preservation of our planet", as best evidenced in the chorus with lines such as, "Always seem to, be governed by this love we have / For useless, twisting, our new technology / Oh, now there is no sound—for we all live underground". He added, "While the song itself reflected Jamiroquai's more mature and polished sound at the time, it was the accompanying video unveiled the following month that became the band's transformative, watershed moment."