FEATURE:
For We All Live Underground
Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity at Thirty
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I am keen to come…
IN THIS PHOTO: Jay Kay of Jamiroquai in 1996
to some features about one of the standout tracks of the 1990s. The second single from Jamiroquai’s Travelling Without Moving album, it was released on 19th August, 1996. I am looking to the thirtieth anniversary of a song that is a dystopian critique of society's over-reliance on technology, environmental destruction, and mass consumerism. It sounds fresh and prescient in 1996. Thirty years later, things have become more extreme in many respects. Virtual Insanity spreading into social media and other areas. A timely song in 1996, we can learn a lot from this successful single. One that went to number three in the U.K. and a top forty in the U.S., the single did reach number one on a few charts – including UK Hip Hop/R&B (OCC). A lot of the acclaim ad conversation is around the Jonathan Glazer-directed video where the band’s lead, Jay Kay, is dancing on a floor that is moving. Like a huge travelator, it is not a one-take video, though it does look like one. It is captivating and very cool. One that perfectly blends with the song. A great performance and an extraordinary concept. In terms of its success, Virtual Insanity has been remixed, used on shows and soundtracks, parodied and copied time and time again. At the 1997 MTV Video Music Award, Virtual Insanity won four awards, including Video of the Year. Here is the first article that I want to feature. Giving you some insight into the video and the song’s lyrics. A great read from Retropunk:
“Virtual Insanity released on August 19, 1996 about a week before Traveling without Moving — the third studio album by the English funk/acid jazz band Jamiroquai.
The video utilized a series of conveyor belts to create some really cool visuals that were very unique at the time.
It’s music video was released the following month and a year later would be nominated for 10 awards at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. It went on to win four of them:
Video of the Year
Breakthrough Video
Best Visual Effects
Best Cinematography
What Makes it so Great?
When you think back to the 90’s as a whole, or 1996 in particular, I’m sure you can find more notable singles. It was a decade of hits and the advent of a new generation where we saw the rise of icons like Dave Matthews, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, and the like. Jamiroquai, while a fairly prolific band in their own right, are often thought of as a one-hit-wonder here in the US — that is until people realize the dance song at the end of Napoleon Dynamite is Canned Heat from them as well. So why do I think Virtual Insanity is the best song of the 90’s? A few reasons.
A Unique Sound
First and foremost, it sounds really good. A lot of songs from decades past have the sound of that time period. I mean, when you hear something like I Ran by A Flock of Seagulls, or Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart it sounds like the 1980’s. When you hear You Get What You Give by the New Radicals or Bye, Bye, Bye by Nsync, it sounds like the late 90’s. Because of the band’s unique blend of sounds, it doesn’t come off feeling old. Sure it’s a different sound than the hip-hop heavy beats our culture is steeped in today, but it’s not that out of place.
A Unique Message with Increasing Relevance
The lyrics of this song almost seem prophetic looking back. In a world transitioning from the grit of grunge to the manufactured sounds of bubblegum pop, Virtual Insanity painted a landscape of a world more akin to a sci-fi thriller. A world with — as Charlie Chaplin would have described as — machine men, with machine minds, and machine hearts. A world of selfishness where “we can always take, but never give”. A world of virtual insanities in which we find ourselves consumed with “these useless, twisting, of our new technology.” Where “there is no sound, for we all live underground.”
With the recent circulation a video explaining the yet-to-be-instituted concept of facilities where we would utilize artificial intelligence and other new technologies to grow babies in facilities with 30,000 growth pods — or artificial wombs — the lyric “and now every mother can choose the color of her child, that’s not nature’s way” seems more timely than ever.
Final Thoughts
Is it a perfect song? Well I’m not sure there is a “perfect” song, but it’s a darn good one. It holds up even 26 years later, and it’s lyrics paint a portrait of a world that is looking and feeling more and more like our own by the day. Off all the classics from that era of music, few stand the test of time (in my humble opinion) the way Virtual Insanity does”.
I was already aware of Jamiroquai in 1996. I loved their 1993 debut album, Emergency on Planet Earth and 1994’s Return of the Space Cowboy. I still think I have the original C.D. I bought of 1999’s Synkronized. This was a band who released their debut a year before I started high school. Synkronized arrived the year I left. There was something about Virtual Insanity that really hit me. Instantly catchy. Perhaps I was not aware of its relevance and deeper message. I was won by its funkiness and how singalong-worthy it was. In terms of technology, I was noy really immersed in it aged thirteen. Adults around me perhaps more so. Listening to the song now, and are the lyrics more relevant than ever, or are they are a little dated? In that things are so much bigger and worse. A song that goes to greater extremes in getting these points across. Rock Cellar Magazine wrote about Virtual Insanity on its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2021:
“The track, a delectably danceable tune with pointed lyrics from front man/figurehead Jay Kay that cast a critical eye on our communal reliance on technology, was topical at the time it was released, the internet still building its stranglehold on everything, a few years away from becoming an all-encompassing aspect of daily life.
Future’s made of virtual insanity
Now 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
(It’s worth noting the coincidence of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook choosing today — the anniversary of this particular song — to launch a virtual reality remote work app called Horizon Workrooms, featuring digital work meetings).
The track’s music video, premiered a month after the song’s debut, was a phenomenon on MTV, which at the time was still a significant force in the music world, and in this case it helped make Jamiroquai a global sensation.
The visually impressive video featured Kay dancing alone in a room in which the floor appears to move, while the rest of the room remains stationary. To this day, it’s an iconic snapshot of the time, and one of the ’90s most memorable music videos:
Director Jonathan Glazer broke down the behind-the-scenes magic of the “Virtual Insanity” video:
“Virtual Insanity” was the second single featured on Travelling Without Moving, Jamiroquai’s third studio album. Led by the track, the record was a hit around the world, selling eight million copies and helping Jamiroquai clean up at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1997 (again, a huge deal at the time), where it was named Video of the Year.
The song also earned the group Best Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy Award, one of two nominations it picked up (Travelling Without Moving was up for Best Pop Album).
Synkronized, the 1999 follow-up record to Travelling Without Moving, was unable to capitalize on the previous record’s breakthrough success on a commercial level, though the inclusion of lead single “Canned Heat” a few years later in the 2001 comedy Napoleon Dynamite further helped Jamiroquai remain a relevant force in pop culture:
Though the mid ’90s breakthrough marked the commercial peak of Jamiroquai in the United States, at least, the band rode the momentum of “Virtual Insanity” to five more albums, the most recent coming in 2017 (Automaton), Jay Kay and his colleagues remaining a force around the world — and one whose most well-known mission statement remains relevant today”.
I want to come to an article from Dercoded Magazine from 2022. Transcribing an interview between Jay Kay and Zane Lowe on “Apple Music 1 for a deep dive into the UK acid-jazz collective. They discuss the early days of his career and the massive breakout success of “Virtual Insanity”:
“Jamiroquai Tells Apple Music About The Iconic Video For “Virtual Insanity”…
It was a funny day doing that video. Not only, as you well know, Zane, videos were vastly expensive in those days. This is an example of when you really are working with somebody and you are clicking on the same level. Anyway, and there a couple of sofas in the room and I’m like, right. And it was straight into action, whatever it was, seven in the morning, eight in the morning, a bit of makeup, off you go. I remember standing in the middle of the room and the song played back and I got into a regular slink about, like I do. Cat in the hat it. Anyway, I’d said, “Let me look behind the camera and see what on earth you’re talking about.” As soon as I look behind the camera, I went, “Oh, I get it. I see what’s going on here.” And from then on, the magic happened. Apart from, I might add, it was only four shots that video. I never quite understood the crow. What the f**k is the crow doing here? Anyway, nevermind”.
I wonder if there will be anything special done for the thirtieth anniversary of Virtual Insanity on 19th August or for Travelling Without Moving on 28th August? It is not only one of the defining tracks of the 1990s. I feel it is up here with the best songs ever. That pairing of the incredible track (written by Jay Kay and Toby Smith) and that video from the masterful Jonathan Glazer. This feature was published in 2018. Just over twenty years from the release of Virtual Insanity, it still held some modern relevance and power:
“Who among us wouldn’t settle for some 1990s-strength insanity when faced with daily bouts of extreme insanity from some of the world’s most important political leaders 20 years later?
Back in the mid-1990s, the biggest driver of your insanity was the seemingly interminable delay every time your dial-up connection tried to download a tiny text file from something we’d only recently started calling “the internet”.
Nowadays you can go straight from a state of serene calm to “steam coming out the ears” rage just by catching the headlines on the 10 o’clock news…
Maybe it’s because we didn’t listen closely enough 20 years ago…
And nothing’s going to change the way we live
‘Cos we can always take but never give
And now that things are changing for the worse
See it’s a crazy world we’re living in
And I just can’t see that half of us immersed in sin
Is all we have to give
Winston Churchill said that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Mark Twain said that, while history doesn’t often repeat itself, it does rhyme.
Maybe back in 1996 Jamiroquai was giving us a warning for the future which, whilst it may not have happened exactly as they thought it would, has certainly rhymed with their warnings against living a virtual life instead of a real one. Perhaps we should have paid “Virtual Insanity” more attention.
I mentioned earlier the truly amazing video for “Virtual Insanity”. When you consider this was actually made as a low-tech video without green screens and camera trickery, it’s even more brilliant than you might think it is.
I remember seeing an interview with JK where he explained that off-screen there were basically a group of hefty blokes moving stuff around on rollers to create the room’s ever-changing shape. It’s a really clever video, though, made by people who really knew what they were doing when it came to realising an idea in the days you couldn’t just “paint it in later” on a green screen.
But there’s one other element that makes “Virtual Insanity” such a great song. That’s the staccato jazzy chords on the keyboard that carry the theme of the song right through.
A long time ago I played the piano…not brilliantly, but well enough to know that playing a chord like that is much harder than you might think. There’s a real skill in “attacking” the keys to make the sound nice and crisp, but then lifting your fingers off again quickly to end the note as abruptly as it began.
I can’t find a definitive reference online to who played the keyboard on this track, but whoever it was showed some real musical skill… another aspect of the 1990s that was arguably better than today.
However if you want to go back to the 1990s…
Back to when records were made with real instruments, rather than laptops…
Back to when we had to struggle with dial-up internet but at least we didn’t have our iPhones pinging every few minutes with another vacuous social media update…
Back to when insanity amongst the global ruling classes looked like merely a bit of harmless eccentricity compared to today’s nonsense…
Then there’s no better company for your journey back in time than Jamiroquai, with their excellent song, “Virtual Insanity”…”.
In terms of those songs from a decade that really take me back and have real significance, I feel Virtual Insanity is right in there. At that age when I was really digesting all this different music, Jamiroquai really were among my favourite groups. Familiar with their work before Virtual Insanity, this single totally blew my mind. I still does in a way. Turning thirty on 19th August, I feel that we have not really listened heard enough to the lyrics and their relevance. Virtual Insanity’s final words are these: “Virtual insanity is what we're livin' in, yeah, yeah/Well, it's alright”. Is that Jay Kay giving in or just going with the tide? An important question…
THIRTY years on.