Jamiroquai were one of those bands that it was dead cool to listen to when you were at school, although, other than the Godzilla tune, I couldn’t really name many of their songs.
But as we all wish we were still in the 1990’s, we think it’s about time we have a ponder over what Jay Kay and his mates are up to these days.
Who are they?
Jamiroquai were an English band who became very prominent on the acid jazz music scene in the early-1990’s London-based acid jazz movement, finding fame alongside groups such as Incognito, the Brand New Heavies, Galliano, and Corduroy.
Although their subsequent albums helped them explore the rock, pop and electronic genre’s, the band have never lost fans with anything they have done, and have sold over 21 million albums all over the world.
Here’s an interesting fact you might not know either, their name came about when the band fused the term; ‘Jam session’ and ‘iroquai‘, after the Iroquois, a Native American tribe.
Although the band has grown in size over the years, it originally begun as Jay Kay on vocals, Toby Smith on keys with Stuart Zender handling bass, Nick Van Gelder thrashing out on the drums whilst Wallis Buchanan messed about on a didgeridoo.
However, due to the way the band has often been seen, Jamiroquai is frequently thought to be Jay Kay’s alias and refuse to acknowledge that is actually the name of the band, and simple view Jay as a solo artist.
Music Career
The bands first single, When You Gonna learn was a modest success upon release in 1992, and they spent the next two years releasing two albums, Emergency on Planet Earth in 1993 and 1994’s The Return of the Space Cowboy.
It was the title track from their 1994 album that really brought commercial success, and in 1996, they were rewarded with international success with the release of the singles, Virtual Insanity and Cosmic Girl.
In 1999 the bands latest album, Synkronized continued to express the boys’ interest in acid jazz flavours and ethnic influences, however, by 2001, the band decided to take a new path, and A Funk Odyssey, their fifth album, led to many critics and listeners claiming that they lost the 'Jamiroquai sound'.
With the departure of more and more of the original band members, including Wallis Buchanan and his didgeridoo, Jamiroquai had become a very different band than the one that arrived on the scene in 1992, however, regardless of that the bands first single from the fifth album, Little L, reached number one in many charts worldwide.
The follow up to this was the successful, Dynamite, which was released on 20 June 2005 and reached number three on the UK charts before they thought it was time to haul out a greatest hits - High Times: Singles 1992-2006 - in November 2006.
This greatest hits released marked the end of Jay Kay’s eight-album deal with Sony, and going out with a bang, the album hit the number one spot un the UK on it’s first week of release.
Life After Sony
In March 2006, Jamiroquai announced their switch to Columbia Records, then, during February 2007 they performed the record breaking Gig in the Sky in association with Sony Ericsson.
However, we haven’t seem much from the band since that signing, apart from a few live shows, in Febuary 08 at the Khodynka Arena in Moscow, Russia at the launch of the new Audi A4 car, June 08 at the Wianki Festival in Kraków, Poland and then again at the Rock in Rio Madrid festival.
However, the most exciting news is that 2009 will bring a new Jamiroquai album which should see a new direction for the band; the first inkling which was seen at the closing concert of Malaysian F1 Grand Prix in Sepang International Circuit Malaysia and on the 9th of April
If reports are to be believed, Jay will be signing a new deal with
a Major label and will release some new material at the end of this year or early next year, and he is currently in the studio. Woo!
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison
Tagged in Jamiroquai