DR. TANYA LOOKS AT SPECULATIVE POP
H.G. Wells’ “Things To Come” was a seminal piece of work which predicted much of todays reality way back in the 1920’s. Whilst the film version is a bit pervy (in a 1930’s sort of way) it still stands up today as a great piece of speculative fiction. But books are for fools right? In the second half of the twentieth century we looked to pop to tell us the things which were coming.
Well no, we didn’t because most pop stars flunked out science and just watched the odd episode of Doctor Who instead. Hence the doom laden prophecy of Zager and Evans “In The Year 2525”. (Just as an aside, you never get the feeling that Zager and Evans were 100% comfortable with each other. On the one side there was tin foil wearing Zager, all futuristic name and Moog mauling. On the other we had Evans from the Rhondaa valley.) Z’n’E had a rather murky crystal ball at best. They merely posited that in the year 2525, we may not all still be alive. But if we were, then best not look to our laurels. What about the year 3535. And so on. Repeat ad nauseum (and trust me the nausea sets in solidly round the year 5555).
Nevertheless even this is preferable to Jamiroquai’s look into the near future. He would have been a lot better off just repeating one line, rather than spinning out such nonsensical couplets as:
“Its a wonder man can eat at all
When things are big which should be small”
I can only assume that Mr Kay is talking about his ego, because its tricky to work out what else is undergoing this small big transformation. Computers? Radio’s? Cars? Perhaps he is talking about pumpkins? Certainly in his local village fete there was a monster pumpkin that rocked in the size of one of the smaller Hawaiian islands. Jay was probably scared shitless when it was turned into a learing Jack’O’Lantern, floodlit from the inside.
Virtual Insanity, even forgetting the trouble that Mr Middle Of The Alphabet has with his furniture in the video, is a troubling song for troubling times. You see our futures are governed by the love we have for useless twisting of our new technology. I think we all know where the seeing eye dog of plagarism is coming from here. Though its not so clear what he means when he suggests that “Now there is no sound, because we all live underground”. Is this some sort of deadening effect of caves. I remember pot-holing once, and there certainly is a lot of sound, especially when some knob nosed git goes “halooo” in an echoey chamber. Nevertheless this is Mr Van Outen’s fantasy and we must abide by its rules. Indeed I am happy to abide by them as JK is talking about a future utopia. I am not sure how he is going to wangle it – this no sound underground business, but I for one am up for it. No sound equals no music equal bliss.
Therefore, despite the incoherence of nearly all the lyrics, Jamiroquai are my picks for the HG Wells of pop. No sound. If only it could happen.