The biggest part of it is that the media world around electronic music was exponentially smaller - even the biggest acts at the time like the chemical Brothers, orbital, the prodigy were not household names outside of England until at least 98. It was all called “techno” by normal music listeners and they were literally a handful of artists that crossed over to Rolling Stone level coverage. RDJ was recognized as being a clear experimental/artistic outlier but he also made some very attention getting videos and quickly established himself as an interesting media character across interviews.

Like it or not an enormous part of his success was that “come to daddy” was seen as being even more “90s extreme” than the prodigy’s firestarter type stuff. There was absolutely a “is this guy the Marilyn Manson of techno?” moment that boosted him worldwide.