It was once the pinnacle of digital recordable audio, a would-be successor to the mighty cassette tape. And for one glorious moment in 1996, Sony MiniDisc was all that was right with the world, exemplified by a trippy Japan-only ad campaign with none other than Jamiroquai.
Western guests sometimes look awkward in resurfaced surreal Japanese TV spots, but here, English 90s acid funk legends Jamiroquai and frontman Jay Kay seem like they’re home.
Hypnotic:
MiniDisc, for its part, was a solid choice for your music recording needs in 1996. The format dates all the way back to 1983, beating Sony’s other format, DAT, by several years. The challenge was that by the time hardware became affordable, MiniDisc was up against writable CDs. CDs also had a slight edge on audio quality; unlike CD audio’s lossless 16-bit/44.1 kHz sound, MiniDisc used Sony-proprietary lossy ATRAC. It also saw limited use among record labels, who had already adopted CDs.
MD still had a place. In the age before portable MP3 players came into their own, Sony had some terrific portable players, and it fit into a nicer form factor. MiniDisc’s anti-skip technology also made it more reliable than CDs, which also made it ideal for mobile use. I got a lot of use out of one running tech for college dance concerts, also because of the reliability and ease of the format.
All of this meant MD did find a place in some niche applications, and the Japanese market ate it up. 22 million players were sold; production of the media only ceased earlier this year. (R.I.P., obsolete format!)
And all of that brings us to Jamiroquai. I guess there’s something to say about this, but what’s to add?
Of course, you’ve got the 1996 banger “Virtual Insanity” as the soundtrack here, as associated with the iconic music video by Jonathan Glazer. That video was shot on moving walkways but not with human embodiments of MiniDisc changers, so…
Just do not – do not – call MiniDisc a failure or flop.
The fans may not be as numerous as vinyl, cassette, or CD, but they’re passionate: