Virtual Insanity
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| "Virtual Insanity" | ||
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| Single by Jamiroquai | ||
| from the album Travelling without Moving | ||
| B-side(s) | Bullet | |
| Released | 1996 (UK) 1997 (US) | |
| Format | CD/7"/12"/2x12" | |
| Recorded | 1996 | |
| Genre | Funk/Disco/Pop | |
| Length | 5:40 | |
| Label | Sony BMG | |
| Writer(s) | Jay Kay, Sam Smith | |
| Producer(s) | Jamiroquai, Al Stone | |
| Chart positions | ||
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| Jamiroquai singles chronology | ||
| "Do You Know Where You're Coming From" (1996) | Virtual Insanity (1996) |
"Cosmic Girl" (1997) |
"Virtual Insanity" is a single by the band Jamiroquai, and can be found on their 1996 album Travelling without Moving. The song reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1996.
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[edit] Music Video
"Virtual Insanity" is perhaps Jamiroquai's most well-known music video. At the MTV Video Music Awards in September 1997, it earned ten nominations, winning four awards, including "Breakthrough Video" and the "Best Video of the Year." In 2006, it was voted 9th by MTV viewers in a poll on music videos that 'broke the rules'. It was directed by Jonathan Glazer. The single was released in the U.S. in 1997.
[edit] Video description
The video consists mainly of Jamiroquai's singer, Jay Kay, dancing and performing the song in a bright white room with a grey floor. In the room there are two pieces of furniture, one single and one double couch. (A three seater couch also appears)
The video earned recognition from critics for its special effects: the floor appears to move while the rest of the room stays still, allowing for Kay to perform moves not normally seen in music videos.
At some points the camera rotates down or up and shows the floor or ceiling for a few seconds, and when it returns to the central position, the scene has completely changed.
Other scenes show a crow flying across the room, a cockroach in the floor, the couches bleeding and the other members of Jamiroquai in a corridor being blown away by wind. This became the second video released by Jamiroquai to be successfully done in one complete, albeit composited, shot (Space Cowboy being the first).
The moving floor effect was done thus: the set (the walls and ceiling) were designed to move on wheels while the floor stayed still. A camera was locked onto the set, and so it appears the floor is moving while the set stays still.
[edit] Audio sample from Alien
The first 15 seconds of the song contain sampled sound effects from the beginning of the film Alien, when the "Mother" computer onboard the Nostromo spaceship receives an unidentified signal from a nearby planet.
[edit] Song's Other Appearances
Virtual Insanity was covered by WaveGroup for the 2005 Xbox game Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 3 and the 2006 Konami PS2 game Beatmania, but a different non-Wavegroup version by Thomas Howard Lichtenstein has also appeared on many arcade versions of DrumMania and Guitar Freaks since its first simultaneous appearance on 'GuitarFreaks 3rd Mix' and 'DrumMania 2nd Mix', also by Konami. It is also available in Konami's Karaoke Revolution Volume 2, which uses neither of the previously mentionned versions.
It was also featured in the American Eagle Outfitter's Holiday 2006 in-store playlist.
It was performed live on the American television reality show American Idol by contestant Blake Lewis on the February 27, 2007 (Top 20 - Males) showing.
[edit] B-Side
The B-side of the single, "Bullet" is probably one of the most mysterious Jamiroquai tracks ever written. The song starts with a 3-second percussion intro, and switches into a longer, very claustrophobic introduction. During this part, very faint vocals can be heard in the background, while the melody progresses. The vocals remained shrouded in a veil of mystery, until recently, after a fan did some "research" on the song. [1] The broken lyrics seem to have been printed out by accident in a misprint of the booklet of the band's sophomore album, The Return of the Space Cowboy. A page containing the misprinted lyrics can be found here. The correct song lyrics (for comparison purposes) can be found here.
It should also be noted that the musical structure of the "long intro" to "Bullet" bears very heavy resemblance to the one of "Just Another Story", from The Return of the Space Cowboy.
[edit] External links
| Jamiroquai |
|---|
| Members: Jason Kay | Rob Harris | Paul Turner | Matt Johnson | Derrick McKenzie | Sola Akingbola | Lorraine McIntosh | Hazel Fernandez | Sam Smith |
| Former members: Gavin Dodds | Simon Katz | Nick Fyffe | Stuart Zender | Simon Carter | Toby Smith | Nick Van Gelder | Darren Galea (DJ D-Zire) | Winston Rollins | Adrian Revell | Wallis Buchanan | Beverley Knight |
| See also: Buffalo Man | Chillington studio | Iroquois | Gig in the Sky |
| Discography |
| Studio albums |
| Emergency on Planet Earth (1993) | The Return of the Space Cowboy (1994/1995) | Jazzmatazz, Vol. 2: The New Reality (Guest appearance) (1995) | Travelling without Moving (1996/1997) | Synkronized (1999) | A Funk Odyssey (2001) | Dynamite (2005) |
| Compilation albums |
| Jay's Selection (1996) | In Store Jam (promo, 1997) | Late Night Tales: Jamiroquai (2003/2005) | High Times: Singles 1992-2006 (2006) |
| Box sets |
| L'Intégrale des Maxi-Singles (1994) | The Single Box (1997) | The Singles Collection (1997) | Deeper Underground (1998) | 1999 Remixes (1999) | ULBC (Fanmade) (??) |
| Unofficial live recordings (ROIOs) |
| If I Like it, I do it (1993) | BBC 528 (1993) | Stockholm '93 (1993) | Club Citta '93 (1993) | Songs for Manitú (1993) | Firenze [sic] 1993 (1993) | Funky Paradise (1994) | JAZZiroquai (1995) | ... |
| DVDs |
| Live In Verona (2002/2003) | High Times: Singles 1992-2006 (2006) |
| Singles |
| When You Gonna Learn | Too Young to Die | Blow Your Mind | Emergency on Planet Earth | Space Cowboy | Half the Man | Stillness in Time | Light Years | The Kids | Do U Know Where You're Coming From? (Guest appearance) | Virtual Insanity | Cosmic Girl | Alright | High Times | Deeper Underground | Canned Heat | Black Capricorn Day | Supersonic | King for a Day | I'm in the Mood for Love (Guest appearance) | Little L | You Give Me Something | Love Foolosophy | Corner of the Earth | Main Vein | Feels Just Like It Should | Seven Days in Sunny June | (Don't) Give Hate a Chance | Runaway |
| Promotion-only / Cancelled / White label singles |
| Revolution 1993 | If I Like It I Do It | Morning Glory | Everyday | Travelling Without Moving | Hollywood Swingin' | Soul Education | An Online Odyssey | Feel So Good | Do It Like We Used To Do | Bad Girls | Dynamite | Starchild | Electric Mistress | Time Won't Wait | Emergency on Planet Earth & Blow Your Mind remixes | Talullah (Shelter mixes) | Multiquai |
