Virtual Insanity

"Virtual Insanity"
Single by Jamiroquai
from the album Travelling Without Moving
B-side	Bullet
Released	19 August 1996 (1996-08-19)
Format	CD, 12", Cassette
Recorded	1996
Genre	Acid jazz, funk
Length	5:40 (Album Version) 4:04 (Single Version) 3:46 (Radio Version)
Label	Sony Soho Square
Writer(s)	Jay Kay, Toby Smith
Producer	Jamiroquai, Al Stone
Jamiroquai singles chronology
"Do You Know Where You're Coming From?" (1996) "Virtual Insanity" (1996) "Cosmic Girl" (1996)

"Virtual Insanity" is the lead single from British Acid Jazz band Jamiroquai's third studio album, Travelling Without Moving. The song reached #3 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also charted at #38 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart upon the single's release in America in 1997. In December 2010, the song was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan as a digital download to cellphones, five years after its release on the medium.

Music video

"Virtual Insanity" is perhaps Jamiroquai's best known music video. At the 1997 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. At the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, Jamiroquai performed the song, recreating the famous floor moving concept with two moving walkways on the stage floor, going in different directions, for Jay Kay to use to dance on.

Video description

Jay Kay in the "Virtual Insanity" music video

The video consists mainly of Jamiroquai's singer, Jay Kay, dancing and performing the song in a bright white room with a grey floor. Throughout the video, there are several combinations of couches and easy chair, which are the only furniture in the room. The video earned recognition from critics for its special effects: the floor appears to move while the rest of the room stays still. At some points the camera tilts up or down to show 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 on 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. In a short making-of documentary, director Jonathan Glazer describes how the four walls move on a stationary grey floor with no detail, to give the illusion that the floor is moving. However, he does not state where the fourth wall is. In several shots, chairs or couches are fixed to the walls so that they appear to be standing still, when in fact they are moving. In other shots chairs remain stationary on the floor, but the illusion is such that they appear to be moving. The moving walls were not completely rigid and can be seen in some shots to wiggle slightly.

Trivia

The first 15 seconds of the album version 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. "Virtual Insanity" was covered by WaveGroup Sound for the 2005 Xbox game Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 3 and the 2006 Konami PS2 game Beatmania, but a different cover version by Thomas Howard Lichtenstein has also appeared on many arcade versions of DrumMania and Guitar Freaks, also by Konami. It is also available in Konami's Karaoke Revolution Volume 2 and Lips on some locales as downloadable content and in others as an on-disc song. In 1997, the song was used for a commercial for the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, with Chris Rock parodying the video. It was also featured in the American Eagle Outfitters' Holiday 2006 in-store playlist. In 2007, the song was used in commercials to advertise Space Week on The Science Channel. In the same year, Blake Lewis performed the song on American Idol. In December of that year, the song peaked #70 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90's." On 27 December 2009, Sezairi Sezali sang this song in the finals of the third season of Singapore Idol, on the same night he won Idol. The Yamaha PSR-280 digital keyboard contains a demo track entitled "Virtual", which is an instrumental cover of Virtual Insanity. The keyboard also features numerous other references to pop music; for example, one of the instruments, named "Jump Bass", mimics the synthesizer used in the opening of Van Halen's "Jump".

Single Information

The first B-side of the single is the song "Do You Know Where You're Coming From", which features M-Beat. It was released as a single earlier in 1996. The second 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. The broken lyrics seem to have been printed out by accident in a misprint of the booklet of the band's second album, The Return of the Space Cowboy. 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 and it could be a possible faint remix of Just Another Story or a faint sample of Just Another Story.

Tracklisting

UK CD1 (663613 2)

1. "Virtual Insanity" – 4:04
2. "Do You Know Where You're Coming From?" (Original Mix) – 4:59
3. "Bullet" – 4:19
4. "Virtual Insanity" (Album Version) – 5:40

UK CD2 (663613 5)

1. "Virtual Insanity" – 4:04
2. "Space Cowboy" (Classic Radio) – 4:01
3. "Emergency On Planet Earth" (London Rican Mix) – 7:10
4. "Do You Know Where You're Coming From" – 4:59

Cassette (663613 4)

1. "Virtual Insanity" – 4:04
2. "Virtual Insanity" (Album Version) – 5:40
3. "Virtual Insanity" (Unreality Mix) – 3:54

Chart performance

Chart (1996/1997)	Peak position
Belgian Singles Chart (Wallonia)	15
Finnish Singles Chart	7
French Singles Chart	15
German Singles Chart	63
Irish Singles Chart	7
Italian Singles Chart	1
Swedish Singles Chart	32
UK Singles Chart	3
U.S. Billboard Pop Songs	39
U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks	38
U.S. Billboard Adult Top 40	37
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play	34