Jamiroquai – Emergency on Planet Earth (1993)

I really liked Jamiroquai as a teenager. I guess one of the main reasons was that at the time I was enthusiastically learning to play the bass and Jamiroquai delivered some of the best bass lines I had heard. At the time I wasn't really familiar with the original funk movement of the 70s, so Jamiroquai and Red Hot Chili Peppers were the two bands that introduced me to funk bass. Jamiroquai was the band out of these options that lasted time better and I still enjoy listening to them unlike RHCP. At the time, Jamiroquai was quite different from the other bands I listened to. That was the time when I was discovering 60s and 70s classic rock bands. In hindsight, I have to say that even though Jamiroquai's early albums still sound quite good, they're not a match for actual 70s funk classics, which I have only really discovered in the last few years.



Emergency on Planet Earth is the debut album of Jamiroquai and it's one of the best albums they released. Back in the day I would've definitely said their third album Travelling Without Moving was their best album because of all the hits, but now I actually like this debut album probably more. It is less radio-firendly and more true to its influences in old-school funk. Coming closer to 00s, Jamiroquai had lost most of their original sound and I have never been into the later albums. This album and Travelling Without Moving are still the greatest albums they released.

The album starts with didgeridoo until the strings lead the song into a funky opening song When You Gonna Learn? This is one of my favourite songs on the album. The fantastic horn section along with the flute and violin give it a fantastic big band style while the rhythm section keeps the groove on really well. Too Young to Die also starts with strings and is led to a proper funk song where the bass line is bouncing beautifully. The big orchestration of the songs along with funky rhythm section reminds me of Isaac Hayes even though the vocals are really not similar at all. Hooked Up is the first proper acid jazz song. It's mostly an instrumental song, but instrumentation is fantastic. It sounds fairly similar to Herbie Hancock's funk albums in the mid-70s. If I Like It, I Do It has a bit cheesier style, but as the song progresses, there are some fantastic groove sequences in the song. Music of the Mind slows things down a bit and introduces rock organs in a much more central role than in earlier songs. The raunchy bass line sounds quite metallic and there's sexy kind of wavy rhythm in this instrumental song. Towards the end the beat gets faster and there are some strange space sounds thrown in the mix. The title-track Emergency on Planet Earth is one of the biggest hits on the album. Stylistically, this is closest to the style the band pursued on their subsequent albums. The chorus is quite catchy. Whatever It Is, I Just Can't Stop starts out as a proper funk jam that sounds much more improvised than the rest of the album. It almost sounds like Beck in places. Blow Your Mind has a great pounding bass line and soft vocals that reminds me of old disco more than funk. Revolution 1993 brings back the strange synth sounds and overall, this is probably the strangest song on the album. The over 10 minute length of the song allows more playfulness. There are similarities to Nigerian funk as well. The album ends with didgeridoo jam song Didgin' Out. I don't know why the instrument wasn't used much on the later albums. It would've been quite interesting to see where they could've taken that sound later on.

Jamiroquai is remembered by many people through the lead singer Jay Kay, whose big hairy hat became something of a strange trademark for the band. The music video for Too Young to Die shows the hat and Jay Kay dancing and singing in a desert next to electricity lines while the colours of the background change in strange colours of sunsets. There's something incredibly 90s about this video and I feel like someone who knows more about tribal traditions could point out a couple of examples of cultural appropriation from the video. Afterall, later on, Jay Kay has for example worn feather headdresses of Native Americans.

I don't really listen to Jamiroquai that much anymore. In the uni, I used to play their hit songs Virtual Insanity or Cosmic Girl as a DJ quite a lot, but other than that, I don't really put these albums on anymore. Then again, it was quite refreshing to hear the debut album again, because I feel now like I can appreciate it better than all those years ago, when the hit songs of Travelling Without Moving were much more appealing. It's also funny how the sound now just sounds very retro, because I know more about the actual funk music of the 70s, whereas in the 90s, their music sounded much more unique and new, because I wasn't educated enough in funk.

Listen to the album on Spotify.