this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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Oh jfc teletext.. now that's a blast from the past. used to love reading it lol
TIL "gaff" is UK slang for your house or home.
Do people really think that lyricists actually believe all the stuff they write about?
We tried to cover it with my band, but it sounded really boring. Upon listening closely to it, I was surprised by how minimalist it actually is. I mean there's barely anything on the track! Some piano, some strings, and drum and bass of course.
It was a happy surprise to find that it's one of those songs that are carried by the pure energy of the vocalist, which makes it very tricky to cover unless you go a very lateral route and "re-genre" it.
I don't know that I've ever actually registered any of the lyrics within this song, save for "vurchahwuhh insayynatyy!"
Hah, one of those coincidences.
Just 2(?) weeks ago Virtual Insanity popped up on stream and I wondered if Jamiroquai are prophets now or the song is just way younger than I remember
I miss the old internet. Usenet was magic.
Ah, convergence. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the Web would just get extended to do all that stuff. The part that was harder to predict was corporations taking over all the platforms. I guess I just waited to believe that everything would stay democratized.
Then your mind will literally explode if you listen to "Computer Love" by Zapp & Roger, released in...... 1985!
Went down a rabbit hole bc of this (thank you) and found out JK is a twinkess twin and so is Elvis
Not sure what that means but I saw him live a few years back and I was shocked how extremely British he is, both in accent and great sense of humour. Also the whole band is now a bunch of old dudes. I guess that shouldn't be surprising but it was very different from the picture I had in my head since my childhood.
Except the music. The music was just as good as ever. It was awesome.
Yeah it's not about the Internet and virtual reality or fax machines etc, it was about overpopulation and ecological collapse among other things.
The song was inspired by a trip to an underground city in Sendai, Japan if you read Wikipedia. In the late 90s Japan was a gadget obsessed place with neon signs and screens packed into places like Sendai. Japan had industrialised rapidly over the 20th century and gave the impression of a thriving technology and manufacturing industry.
It was seen as a futuristic place by people from the rest of the world when they visited. Of course in reality Japan was in the first of its "lost decades" of stagnation that's run from the early 90s to now.
Yeah, sure. I suppose next you're gonna say that The Return of the Space Cowboy is not about the movie Serenity.
Underground city in Sendai? Did they get radicalised by visiting a shopping center connected to the subway?
Cheeba cheeba is a helluva drug
Maybe I'm gonna have to get high just to get by
Besides not meeting its capitalist expectations, how have Japan's "lost decades" impacted its people, and how does that impact differ from that within comparable nations that had continuous economic growth during that same time (e.g. the US, Europe, Australia, and South Korea)?
Overworked, or refusing to work at all. No one's having sex. Their economy is further collapsing, their population is converging to the point of a death spiral. No one can afford to have a family.
They still like tech in Tokyo and pump out anime, though.
political radicalization. in the past 100 years Japan has seen:
- hypermilitarization
- hyperfascism
- hyperbombs
- hyperdepression
- hypercolonialism
- hyperindustrialization
- hypercapitalism
- hyperrecession
and a lot of people want to know if there will ever be an end to everything being so damn extra all the time, or if Japan is simply expected to burn itself out working. and as is always the case when the people start askrng these questions, there's a rightwing reaction promising to restore Japan to the glory of an imagined past
Is hyperfascism like regular fascism with neon lights or what?
overt fascism. it contrasts itself from fascisms that hide themselves by claiming to be something they're not.
hyper fascist regimes:
- italian fascism
- national socialism
- sharia
- christofascism
- israeli zionism
- japanese imperial militarism
- post soviet russia
covert fascist regimes:
- neoliberalism
- feudalism
- republicanism (the roman concept, not the us political party, they actually fit into the above)
- bolshevism/stalinism/marxist-leninism
- anarcho-capitalism
- technocracy
You're not at all worried about the phenomenon of diluting definitions of powerful words until they lose their power, are you?
it's more like if we don't talk about how these schemes of oppression hand off to eachother, pass the baton, now, the knowledge becomes lost to everyone but the academics who study ur-fascism. i work to be very considered in how i phrase things because words have meaning. i also come at it from the angle that a lot of people living in the imperial cores of America, Russia, and China don't even recognize that they live in the hellscape outlined in George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four and that talking about capitalism v communism is not the fight most of the world at large is having, they're talking about fascism v anarchy.
The problem is if everything becomes fascism, then nobody cares about it. I remember in high school people calling Obama a fascist. So now they have nowhere to go when Trump showed up.
That kind of vague academic language screams of "word salad", of people using big words to make themselves feel smart and feel like they've said and done a lot without doing anything at all. Like this Calvin and Hobbes comic:
You're not wrong. This is what anti-intellectualism gets us, and that goes double for the Hyper® versions.
Don't forget Radiohead releasing Planet Telex in 1995, then OK Computer in 1997.
I remember the that summer. Always wanted a Jamiroqoi hat
Was born in 1996, please can someone tell me who's this? I'd like to listen to them. Thank you.
While you're checking out the video for virtual insanity, also check out the one for Canned Heat, another great tune and another great video from Jamiroquai. I was only a kid then, but I'd turn on MTV in the morning before school to watch videos back in like 97-99, and these videos popped up every so often, and they had a lasting impact.
Check out also the Wikipedia article on Sterno, sometimes referred to as Canned Heat, because people would drink the shit to get fucked up and would ultimately die, and the coroner would rule it a death by canned heat.
It's Jamiroquai.
This video is for: "Virtual Insanity".
The video to : "Automaton" is also worth a watch in my opinion.
You NEED to watch the video: https://youtu.be/4JkIs37a2JE
I really love this cover of virtual insanity.
I know it's almost unrelated to the discussion because you're talking about the music video, but how often is Jamiroquai brought up?
Excellent
I was very skeptical. You did not disappoint.
I remember my mind being blown away by a TV segment that explained how the practical effect was achieved.
Not sure if this is the video you're referencing, but it explained it for me: https://youtu.be/MzwY7ii582Y
Isn't this just Pasttime Paradise by Stevie Wonder?
I'm a fan of both. I don't hear it. Different key, different progression. What are you hearing that I'm not? Also, IMO it's absolutely impossible to not be influenced by Stevie if you play this type of music, so there's that.
Nah my bad it was Stayin Alive by Bee Gees
It's a stretch, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it. 😀
Banger music video
Plus JK is a cool dude.
Great tune too tbh
ty OP for making my afternoon playlist a lot funkier
I see you have good taste.
i don't know who this is
waits
walks away