For modern viewers, the "high-tech" gadgets featured—like brick-sized mobile phones and early portable CD players—provide a nostalgic look at what the 1980s imagined for the future.
The lyrics paint a picture of a , reflecting the band's obsession with cyberpunk aesthetics found in films like Blade Runner and A Clockwork Orange .
The track's title is widely considered a play on the T. Rex classic "20th Century Boy," while its sound was heavily inspired by the minimalist electronic duo Suicide .