Oxygene: Jean-Michel Jarre review
While he never claimed to have spent six years as a Vietnamese prisoner of war, to usurp Sarah Pallin’s favourite expression, Jean-Michel Jarre was a bit of a “miaverick!”
Recently, as lame as it sounds, I have been the ostrich with its head buried deep. I have been drinking more, avoided thinking about the variegated possibilities of a Republican victory. I have not followed politics closely or listened to any new music in the last week. (In fact, I don’t think I’ve listened to anything made since 1984.) But why Jean-Michel Jarre?
First, I am a fan of atmospheric synths and music that sounds like the soundtracks to children’s science fiction films I might one day want to make. How too-serious this album is, I’ve laughed aloud to myself, with its songs that extend for eight minutes or even ten, how dated it sounds in parts and how contemporary in others. And the fact that it features no singing and more-than-the-occasional theremin, renders it ethereal expressions that fade into backgrounds of the bedroom or kitchen, so readings for exams or overdue essays can lead the way (since it’s that season again).
Oxygene is organized into six segments, which flow into each other as if the whole album is a single song, swimmingly in short. The introductory track is long and features various arpegiated and pad synth sounds which remind at times of Air, among other bands (since Jarre has influenced many). The second fragment (which is located below) takes off with bubbling effects (reminiscent of Mum’s water sounds) accompanied by “lasers,” lush studio manipulation over simple electronic drums. The album moves to a crescendo on the “hop-beat” fourth track, before a long Kraftwerk-like fifth segment with a “Europe Endless” meets “The Robots” sort of feel. The album finishes with a vaporous track which reminds me of Ulrich Schnauss.
According to a press release by Dreyfus Records, Jean-Michel Jarre has sold over 80 million records worldwide. And while it is true a lot of his music has a creepy New Age feel to it, he has also inspired artists across electronic and New Wave genres, and supposedly, led the synth revolution three decades ago. When I think of the people who listen to him today I imagine bespectacled nerds in unfashionable sweaters, smoking Gauloises while stepping over a floor-full of cables hooked up to old synthesizers.
Oxygene is perhaps Jean-Michel Jarre’s best known work, the kind of album that makes you feel like 1970s futurism was truly the way to have designed the world in the decades following. Supposedly, the music is so soothing that in 1977, Oxygene was played to opiate radio masses in the Netherlands during the two days when South Moluccan kidnappers held Dutch passengers hostage on a train. Now dig that.
Tags: album
hi there.dont mean to intrude or be rude,just want to tell you that your last 2 paragraphs shows that u have to listen more to jean michel jarre.maybe then u ll find out that you re involved into something much bigger than you think..
check out if you like some tracks like ‘miss moon’ from ‘metamorphoses’ or ‘partners in crime part 1&2′ from ‘teo and tea’.
when it comes to composers as jarre,vangelis.oldfield,kitaro etc you can t be hollow,look deeper my friend.and maybe you ll find out that once a pioneer,always a pioneer..