I heard he wrote this song after visiting a fancy underground mall in Hong Kong/Japan and seeing how gnarly the tech was there at the time.
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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JK was inspired to write the song after he spent all night exploring a web ring - all of which were GeoCities sites with an “under construction” animated gif.
I mean, I guess yea? They was already putting out 2 albums of classic modern soul before traveling without moving and the world couldn’t be bothered…
"Travel Without Moving". Appropriate way to describe VR, even if it's Dune quote.
This song would probably be number one if a popular artist did a cover of it. It hits A LOT harder now
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.
Underground city in Sendai? Did they get radicalised by visiting a shopping center connected to the subway?
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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)?
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
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.
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Yeah, sure. I suppose next you're gonna say that The Return of the Space Cowboy is not about the movie Serenity.
Don't forget Radiohead releasing Planet Telex in 1995, then OK Computer in 1997.
Was born in 1996, please can someone tell me who's this? I'd like to listen to them. Thank you.
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?
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I remember my mind being blown away by a TV segment that explained how the practical effect was achieved.
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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.
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Banger music video
Plus JK is a cool dude.
Great tune too tbh
ty OP for making my afternoon playlist a lot funkier
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.
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Reminds me of Serial Experiments Lain, an anime released in 1998 that talks about the power of social networks and how companies will compete to gain control of the internet. Some of the predictions are outstandingly good.
Then your mind will literally explode if you listen to "Computer Love" by Zapp & Roger, released in...... 1985!
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Before the modern web, before Wikipedia, before pocket computers, Encarta was the shit!
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Looks like the The Expanse main character throwing a hat party inside the Rocinante.
😂🤣
I'd been texting for a couple of years when this came out, and had just logged my first full year working as a web developer. The next 5 years or so felt amazing, hardware and software was improving so quickly on all fronts.
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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.
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I'm walking into spiderwebs, so leave a message and I'll call you back.
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