The new album, Oxymore, is excellent. And the show at Notre Dame Cathedral is outstanding. Well worth watching.
Téo & Téa is a bit cheesy, and there was a big fuzz about whether he programmed a lot of Roland synthesizer patches which were used as default patches, or just reused a bunch of default patches without proper credits. But as an album I like at least half of it, maybe more. I think the fuzz was a bit overdone, as you can recreate a lot of his early music easily on the instruments he used back then (once you know how). And you can also find default synth patches in Rendez-vous and Chronologie. Only there was no Internet back then to flaunt what you discovered as a fellow owner of the synths that Jarre used. PS. Metamorphoses is the latter era Jarre album I like most. Quite brilliant, in my opinion.
I don’t quite get why using stock patches would be a problem. When you buy a synth, you also buy the rights to use it’s patches commercially. Was the backlash more related to people expecting to program each and every sound himself?
There doesn’t seem to be very much info on it (or I’m just using the wrong search words), but it seems it was also questioned if he played it himself. And of course many fans just didn’t like this style of plain EDM. I was really disappointed myself, back then. Nowadays it sounds a bit better than I remember, although it’s still not great. I think he did a much better job with Electronica 1 & 2.
Agree. The vocal tracks on El 1-2 does not really cut it for me, but the rest of it is fine. Not my fave late area JMJ but not bad either. For me the best late area albums are OX3 and EQ-INF. Fantastic albums. But i also respect JMJ for insisting on experimenting like Amazonia and Oxymore.
Here's my over long, personal, story of that mad day back in 1990. My Camcorder footage will be uploaded later today. Paris La Defense - 14th June 1990 - Heaven & Hell. When the subject of attending Jarre’s forthcoming open air concert at La Defense in Paris was first broached I was in two minds. Although a gang of us were considering going, I, and one of my friends G, were away on holiday in Spain at the time and were due to fly back into England on the morning of the show. That would make the situation difficult but not impossible. After some consideration, and some persuasion from the rest of the group, we decided we’d go. Another friend, D, booked the flight tickets and hotel rooms and had promised us that he was fluent enough in French to make sure the trip would be easy and enjoyable. We’d attended the recent Dockland’s show and were keen to see Jarre in his natural habitat - on the streets amongst the sky-scrapers - so it was an exciting prospect all round. The day of the show started with G & me in Spain, unable to sleep and flying back in the small hours to London. The plan was to meet the rest of the troupe at Heathrow airport and after a few hours killing time they arrived and we met up as planned. Everything was going according to plan. We hadn’t been in Paris long when D’s proficient French was proven less than satisfactory as he struggled to communicate with any native speaker working at the airport. We did, however, manage to catch a bus from Charles De Gaulle to the Arche de Triomphe and began to make our way by foot to the hotel. The first problem was that D didn’t quite know exactly where the Hotel was. He knew the name and that it was ‘somewhere off Champs Elysees which, at over a mile long, didn’t really help. The first piece of dumb luck was when we found the hotel after only a relatively short walk along Rue Vernet, an adjacent road to Champs Elysees. It was then that the second problem reared its head. D had underbooked rooms meaning that we’d have to double and triple up. After some debate amongst the group me, G and another friend ended up sharing a room - with me and G sharing a double bed. There was really no time to argue though as it was early afternoon and we wanted to make our way to the ‘venue’. We took a metro train to La Defense station, walked past the Louvre, past the stage area and decided to settle for the day at the end of the Pont de Neuilly bridge over the river Seine. We found a small wall to sit on and settled in for the wait. Sitting on the wall we saw the crowd begin to amass and had our first experience with the Bastille Day pyrotechnics as Cherry Bombs began exploding randomly around us. It was a very hot day in the sun and none of us had bought any drinks so we sent one of the group out to find some water. He returned after a time with as many water bottles as he could afford and could carry but it was woefully short of how many we’d need. We decided to deal with that problem later (but never did). We’d been sat happily on the bridge for an hour or two when without warning the French police force arrived to close the bridge. Apparently the bridge was reserved for seated ‘special guests’ only and the feeling was that the number of viewers might cause the bridge to collapse so it was closed. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem except for the fact that the charming Gendarmes decided to split our group up with the result that I was stuck on one side of the river and the others were moved to the other. At first I had no idea what to do. I was on my own in an ever expanding crowd of people and with no way of finding the rest of the group. This is when dumb luck stepped in again. In Spain I had, for some reason I’ll never remember, purchased a massive inflatable pen - a Bic Biro style in yellow with a blue tip - and, also for unknown reasons, had left it in the bag I was carrying at the time. So I stood by the side of the Seine, down by the banks, and inflated the pen in the hope it would attract attention should one of the group see it. Miraculously (and in hindsight it was miraculous) it worked and after some time the rest of the group, managing to talk their way back over the bridge, saw it and came to the rescue. Without that massive inflatable pen I’d probably still be standing at the banks of the river today! Reunited we stuck together on the side of the bridge closest to the stage and began to wait for the show to begin. One benefit of getting there so early was that we could get quite near to the stage area but the downside was how many hours we’d have to wait for the show to begin. The drinks were running out and as there were more and more people arriving the opportunity to restock was unlikely. So we stood in the sun - hot, thirsty and, in mine and G’s case, badly sleep deprived and waited. And waited. A huge ‘10’ was projected as a countdown on the side of buildings and this was accompanied by a soundtrack consisting of either Donald Fagen's Nightfly album in it’s entirety and Jarre’s ambient track Waiting for Cousteau. I can’t remember how many times I heard The Nightfly that day but the loop of the two recordings seemed to go on forever as the number ‘10’ refused to change. When it did change to ‘9’ there were cheers but it would be a long time until the countdown eventually reached ‘8’. Shortly before the countdown sped up we’d moved as close as we could to the stage - still a fair distance away but a good position to see the spectacle around us - and after a still lengthy wait the countdown ended and the show started. By that time the entire area was packed with people. The concert itself was phenomenal. For those 90 minutes I forgot all about the aches, pains, dryness and tiredness. It was overwhelming. Those who’ve seen the released footage will know how the show went but even from my somewhat compromised vantage point it was a magnificent spectacle. It wasn’t until the last notes of Calypso faded out that the reality of getting back to the hotel sank in. Firstly we knew we’d have to walk back to the Champs Elysees but not only did we not know where we were in relation to the street but also the bridge was closed again. Those lovely Gendarmes were thrilled to tell us so but, risking a night in a cell didn’t sound so bad considering how tired we were so we jumped down into a lower part of the bridge that seemed like a construction area and booked it, the Police shouting at us as we sped away. Past the bridge we reunited with the wandering crowd and following the lead we, dumb luckily, ended up at the Arche de Triomphe again. All we had to do was walk a half a mile or so down the street and we’d be back at our hotel which we, sort of, knew where was located now. The fireworks at the show were spectacular but the excitement they provided was nothing compared to the sheer terror of walking down the Champs Elysees on Bastille night. Ambulances raced back and forth along the road as random rockets were thrown about by the danger loving Parisiennes. They shot up the street at ground level, exploding randomly, and the whole area sounded like a warzone of explosions, sirens and screams. Our nerves were tattered so we took to the adjacent street where our hotel was located and finished the journey from there. Back in the hotel room I sat by the side of the bathroom sink and drank glass after glass of water in an attempt to rehydrate and then fell into bed by the side of G and slept like a log until the next morning. The morning came too soon with the rush to vacate the room before noon and after D had convinced the reception staff that we hadn’t actually emptied the mini-bars in the rooms (we had) we left. Paris was still too hot and we had around 6 hours to kill before a bus back to the airport so, after a McDonalds lunch, we wandered up to Virgin Megastore and saw that Jarre was doing a signing later that day. With nothing better to do we joined the still manageable queue and waited. There was no countdown this time but the wait was still painfully prolonged. Another few hours in the sun later and we finally got to meet JMJ and acquire some autographs - mine was a 7” of Calypso and a La Defense program (both long gone). Then it was back to the Arche de Triomphe to wait for the bus. At the Arche we sat in the sun and listened to tapes on a tape deck we’d bought along for the trip. At least until the batteries died. Eventually the bus came and we were soon back to the airport and then back to Heathrow. Only a brief run in with airport security involving a toy gun one of us was carrying - complete with orange suction darts - got in the way, but it was soon resolved. Mission accomplished and nobody died. I’d call that a win. I still look back on that trip with amazement that we all survived. There was so much teenage hubris and naivety at play that it’s a miracle at least one of us didn’t end up in the Seine, a holding cell, a hospital or the gutter. I saw Jarre again at Wembley Stadium for the Chronologie shows but it just wasn’t the same. That would be the last time I saw JMJ live. I really appreciate that I went to the Paris show and am thankful that I saw one of Jarre’s ‘big ones’ and maybe if it had been an easy experience I wouldn’t look back on it so fondly. It was an against the odds saga and something that none of us, most of us are still friends, will ever forget. It’s an old war story amongst us and we still can’t believe we’re all still around to tell the tale. Docklands was great but this was the real deal. Heaven and hell.
Here's 30 minutes of the show recorded on Video Camera from near(ish) the stage. Only 30 minutes as my battery was running out. Mostly footage of the skyscraper projections and fireworks. It only took 33 years to transfer the Video8 tape. Please forgive the occasional inane ramblings and bad singing of me and my pals. An amazing show and an unforgettable day. Two and a half million people. Insanity.
I was late to the party in this thread, but I'm a big Jean-Michel Jarre fan, so I'm catching up. Being a big fan doesn't mean I love everything that Jarre released. There are some clunkers, but even with them I love the fact that he is trying something different. I'm also a fan of Kraftwerk, early Tangerine Dream and some Vangelis albums. But they all didn't innovate their sound as much. My all time favorite is Equinoxe, although I would like to bring The Concerts In China to a deserted island. Although I like his classic era most, Equinoxe up until and including Zoolook (wait? No Oxygène? I'll come back to that later), I also like some of his later career albums like Metamorphoses and Electronica parts 1 & 2. I learned about Jarre through radio, in a time when his singles still charted in my country. So I was no stranger to Oxygène 4 and Equinoxe 5, but really got interested with Magnetic Fields 2. A friend of mine made me listen to the Magnetic Fields album on his mono cassette player. And I really didn't like it. So I forget about it until a couple of years later another friend was playing his The Concerts In China LP. Now I was taking notice and I had to have this awesome album. After that I got Equinoxe and Magnetic Fields on LP, and this time it did stick (probably the first sign of being an audiophile). After listening to these albums, I thought the Oxygène album was rather bland and one-dimensional, so I never bought it. I still think that from a composition viewpoint, Equinoxe and Magnetic Fields are his most interesting albums. There are melodies, counter melodies, several sequences and sound effects playing at once, and if you listen in, you can hear new parts every time you listen. Jarre is very good at embracing new technology and let it define the sound of his (next) album. The Magnetic Fields album was all about discovering the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument). But it gives the album a "cold" feel, and I like the Magentic Fields tracks from The Concerts In China more, because they sound warmer. Zoolook was his first album that was released after I got into him. It was announced on the radio beforehand, and Dutch radio even played two cuts on the evening before the album hit the shops. You can be sure that I listened and taped that broadcast. And... I was flabbergasted. I heard Ethnicolor and Zoolook, and it was so completely different from what he did before, that I couldn't get my head around it at first. I must have played that tape at least 10 times that evening, and somehow it "clicked" along the way. It was interesting in a completely different way, and I loved it. After this experience, I'm hoping for it everytime he announces a new album. But I only got it a second time with Metamorphoses. Although I personally loved Zoolook, I remember it got mixed reviews and a lot of fans didn't like it. When hearing Rendez-vous for the first time, it sounded to me like he wanted to forget about Zoolook, and return to his more melodic style. But until today I think that Rendez-vous, although melodic and more like Equinoxe, doesn't come close. It misses the "layering" that made his earlier albums sound different with each listen, it's much less composed and arranged. I feel the same about Revolutions and Chronologie. All are great albums compared to other electronic music albums, but lesser albums in Jarre's catalogue. And don't get me started on Waiting For Cousteau, which looked so promising with a 40+ minutes title track. Which turned out to be some computer generated background music. Smart, and again using new technology like on Zoolook, but totally uninteresting for listening to. And combining synths with steel drums? Bad pairing in my opinion. Of course, I still love parts of the aforementioned albums, but I don't play them as much. And often only partly, like the Chronologie 4 - 6 sequence, which I think is brilliant. The closest he came to replicating Equinoxe, imho. And I thing it's really sad that he never released an extended version of Chronologie 6. It's much too short! Okay, that's a lot to take in. I'll get back to you later, with a part 2 of my story about being a Jarre fan.
Thank you for this @edenofflowers, I really enjoyed reading it last night. We're all built on memories, and music is such a powerful vessel for some of the the most precious ones. Thank you for sharing one with us!
Part 2 of my Jarre journey. I had mixed feelings when Oxygene 7-13 was announced. The title suggested both a return to form, and a lack of innovation. But at least I loved the single, Oxygene 8, and its video. When the full album was released, I managed to get the CD with the lenticular cover. I liked part 7 and still loved part 8, but I wasn’t sure about the rest. Part 9 sounded as a 1-on-1 copy of an earlier Oxygène track, parts 10-12 had weird or hardly any melodies, and part 11 was a copy of Elton John’s Song For Guy. But it *was* a new album from my hero (yes, hero! Jarre is the one reason I became a synth player myself), and even better: there would be an indoor tour, with a concert in Rotterdam. I think it was during that concert, watching the visuals, that parts 10-12 really clicked. The album has been a favorite since, I still like it better than the original Oxygène. Nowadays is see part 13 as a musical joke, just like Band In the Rain or the The Last Rumba (and Metamorphoses' Silhouette, which sounds like the background music of an old shampoo commercial in my country, ). I think that Oxygene 7-13 was the first time that Jarre used DJs to remix his tracks*). He released a lot of remixes and CD-singles, but I don't like most of them. Personally, I'm more a fan of traditional extended (re)mixes, where a the original track is (as the word says) extended, but still recognizable. The 7-13 remixes mostly transformed the tracks to non-descript house/EDM. And although they do not work in isolation, I do like the Odyssey Through O2 album (as a trip). *) I just researched Jarremix (1995) and I was wrong: Chronologie was his first album to have DJ-sourced remixes. I do have some of the CD-singles, and think they're not that great. But as a fan I had to had Jarremix, which at the time was only released in France. So a colleague of mine was so kind to buy it for me on a business trip. Fun to have, but not an album I play a lot. After 7-13, we had to wait for 3 years for a new Jarre album: Metamorphoses. During interviews Jarre talked about getting some backlash that Oxygene 7-13 didn't sound contemporary at all. So he changes his sound (again) and combined his melodies with vocals and modern production. Personally, I love it. I think it is his best mix of classic Jarre-ness, modern electronic music and vocals. On this album, he's still creating a unique sound, and not imitating modern artists and DJs, like he started doing after this album. And there's some Zoolookness in the album too, with ordinary sounds that become part of the music. Like the cars in Rendez-Vous à Paris, or the sprinklers in Miss Moon. Again an album that is multi-layered, and has all kind of neat little, hidden details to discover. After 2000 his output became less inspiring. Sessions 2000 was awful. I know now it was released to honor his record deal, but at the time I was immensely disappointed. Geometry Of Love was kind of fun (and hard to get, but I do have the original digipack release). Aero has a lot of unnecessary rerecordings, but the new tracks are okey. Printemps De Bourges was very oldskool. Téo & Téa was cheesy. In 2007 he released Oxygene (New Master Recording). Still thinking at the time that remasters were better sounding than original releases, I bought this one because I never bought the original Oxygène album on (LP or) CD. Basically, this was my Oxygène revelation moment. And not because of the rerecording, but because of the Live In Your Living Room recording on the DVD. At first, is was great to see him (and 3 other musicians) play everything live. But this recording also has 4 new parts that somehow made it a better album to me. I ripped the DVD and this is the version of Oxygène that I listen to since. If you never heard it, you should certainly take a listen (it's on YouTube: https://youtu.be/H9UzNh_2TXk?t=110). After all the tours he did with mostly pre-recorded music, he finally did a tour where he played the full Oxygène album live (like on the DVD). I attended the Liege (Belgium) concert and was sitting at the aisle that he walked through to get to the stage. I was never closer to him than the moment he passed by. I also attended his concert in Amsterdam, 1 or 2 years later. After the New Master Recording there were no new studio albums for a long time. Given his age, I also felt that there might never be a new one. Boy, was I wrong. It took 8 years, but in 2015 and 216 he released Electronica Part 1 and Part 2, and added Oxygene 3 to his catalogue. This was unexpectedly productive. The albums were also unexpectedly good. Although I think that Oxygene 3 is only mediocre, it's nice background music. And I really love the two Electronica albums. I love the concept, of working with both young and old synth artists. I love the diversity and high quality. And I love the Jarre-ness that still oozes from every track. An exceptionally nice project with great output, if you ask me. Having found new energy and inspiration, Jarre then decides to create and release Equinoxe Infinity. To me this was the biggest disappointment ever. I truly hate this album. It should be a sequel to the album I love the most, Equinoxe, and it sounds like a total failure to me. It's so utterly bland and one-dimensional, it's hard to believe he actually wanted to release this. I hear nothing of the original Equinoxe spirit or musicality, the layered (counter) melodies. Where Oxygene 3 still showed some artistic integrity, Equinoxe Infinity sounds like a total ripoff to me. And having the Korg minipops in Robot's Don't Cry doesn't help either, it's clearly an Oxygène sound, not an Equinoxe one. I'm still sad. I'm not very enthusiastic about the rest of his recent releases. Amazonia is just not my kind of music and although Oxymore has great sound design and production, it lacks any melody. It could have been so much better. But in the end, Jean-Michel Jarre has made so much great music to listen to, that I don't mind him experimenting and trying new stuff. Often it led to beautiful music. There hasn't a week gone by since 1981 that I didn't play his music.
I'll avoid the remasters of his classic stuff and hope in my searches to come across inexpensive Polydor pressings.
He sold lots of discs in the 80’s and early 90’s. Everything before the first remaster project (Sony, 1997) will sound fine.
Album, released in 1993 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Chronologie, Pt. 1 (10:51) 2. Chronologie, Pt. 2 (6:05) 3. Chronologie, Pt. 3 (3:59) 4. Chronologie, Pt. 4 (3:59) 5. Chronologie, Pt. 5 (5:34) 6. Chronologie, Pt. 6 (3:45) 7. Chronologie, Pt. 7 (2:17) 8. Chronologie, Pt. 8 (5:33) Total Time: 42:03 Line-up / Musicians - Jean-Michel Jarre / vocals, Digisequencer, Kurzweil K2000, Mini Moog, ARP 2600, Akai MPC60, AKAI S 1000, EMS Synthi AKS, JD 800, Korg O1/W, Roland TR-909, DR 660, Synthex, Eminent 310, JP 8, DJ 70, Fairlight CMI, producing & mixing With: - Patrick Rondat / guitar - Michel Geiss / keyboards, mixing - Dominique Perrier / keyboards - Francis Rimbert / keyboards Releases information Artwork: Michel Granger with By Dahinden (paint box) CD Disques Dreyfus - FDM 36152-2 (1993, France) CD Disques Dreyfus - FDM 36152-2 (1997, FRance) 24-bit remaster by Scott Hull CD Sony Music - 88875046372 (2015, Europe) Remastered from original tapes by Dave Dadwater. CHRONOLOGY was Jarre's eighth overall studio album. It is inspired by Stephen Hawking's book a BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME. 'Chronologie Part 4' and 'Chronologie Part 5' started out as a composition for the Swiss watch company Swatch. The sound of CHRONOLOGY was based on a new wave of electronic dance music that had been developing since the late 1980s. Like Jarre's previous album WAITING FOR COUSTEAU, CHRONOLOGY charted at #11 in the UK charts.
JMJ's father's synth heavy score for Mosquito Coast. Some beautiful moments and quality synth work. Synth ace Michael Boddicker was involved.
JMJ really takes me back to my A-Levels at school in the late 80s. I still collect the cassette releases today. My first album was Revolutions on LP, followed by Jarre Live on cassette. My favourite albums are: Zoolook (one of the great headphones albums) Concert in China Rendez-Zous
Apologies if I missed it, but having read the thread I didn't see any mention of the interview podcasts Matt Berry did with Jarre in 2018: Planet Jarre: The Podcast The very narrow window he had for using an effects pedal on Oxygène is fascinating: he had to catch it when the battery was drained enough to sound good but before it ran out completely. Berry is both a fan and an accomplished musician in his own right, which comes through in the discussion.
Once he understood what was going on, Jarre asked Michael Geiss to customise the Small Stone pedal so he could dail in the lower amount of voltage needed to make the pedal sound smoother. ELECTRO-HARMONIX Small Stone (Mk1) (In French).
Les Granges Brulees pre-dates Oxygene - as does The Deserted Palace. The follow-up to Oxygene was Equinoxe.
Album, released in 1997 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Oxygene 7 (11:41) 2. Oxygene 8 (3:54) 3. Oxygene 9 (6:13) 4. Oxygene 10 (4:16) 5. Oxygene 11 (4:58) 6. Oxygene 12 (5:40) 7. Oxygene 13 (4:27) Total Time: 41:09 Line-up / Musicians - Jean-Michel Jarre / 2600 ARP synthesizer, VCS3 synthesizer, AKS, Eminent 310 Unique, Mellotron M400, Theremin, CS80, Quasimidi Raven, Digisequencer, Akai MPC3000, Nordlead, JV 90, K2000, RMI Harmonic synthesizer, Prophecy, TR808, DJ70, producing & mixing With: - Francis Rimbert / keyboards - Christian Sales / programming (2) Releases information Artwork: Michel Granger CD Disques Dreyfus - FDM 36159-2 (1997, France) Oxygène 7-13 continues where Jean-Michel Jarre left off 20 years before, that is, with the last track ("Part 6") of 1977's Oxygène. Much had changed in the interim, for both Jarre and synthesizer technology. The result is a set of up-tempo, highly melodic electronic trance reminiscent of Steve Hillage' s work of the time, as well as German trance producers like Sven Väth. Though it will sound best to those already familiar with his music, Jarre's influence was considerable, and he continued to prove it into the late '90s.
