"Paranoimia" is a song by English synth-pop group Art of Noise released in 1986, from their album In Visible Silence. The song's better-known version was a version released as a single, featuring television character Max Headroom on v…
"Paranoimia" is a song by English synth-pop group Art of Noise released in 1986, from their album In Visible Silence. The song's better-known version was a version released as a single, featuring television character Max Headroom on vocals. This version was first featured on the 1986 album Re-Works of Art of Noise.
The 7-inch single features a monologue about Max Headroom being scared and unable to sleep (hence "Paranoimia", a portmanteau of "paranoia" and "insomnia"). The 12-inch has a completely different vocal with Headroom as a master of ceremonies, talking about the music and making a pun-laden introduction of the alleged band members: Peter O'Toole on trumpet (the absence of a trumpet in the song explained by O'Toole, notorious at one time for his drinking, "just having a rest between bars"), tennis player Martina Navratilova on bassline (baseline), Cher on mic ("Are you OK, Mike?"), and the Pope on drums.
Max Headroom is a fictional artificial intelligence (AI) character portrayed by actor Matt Frewer. Advertised as "the first computer-generated TV presenter", Max was known for his biting commentary on a variety of topical issues, arrogant wit, stuttering, and pitch-shifting voice. The character was created by George Stone, Annabel Jankel, and Rocky Morton. Max was advertised as "computer-generated" and some believed this to be true, but he was actually actor Frewer wearing prosthetic make-up and contact lenses while wearing a plastic molded suit and sitting in front of a blue screen. Harsh lighting and other editing and recording effects were used to heighten the illusion of a CGI character. According to his creators, Max's personality was meant to be a satirical exaggeration of the worst tendencies of television hosts in the 1980s who wanted to appeal to youth culture yet weren't a part of it. Matt Frewer proposed that Max also reflected the innocence of a person whose views were largely influenced not by mentors and life experience but by information absorbed from television.
