Jean Michel Jarre

Ok we've had recent threads Vangelis and Tangerine Dream, Krautrock ect but what do watmm'ers think of the ole flamboyant french synth maestro?

For me it he was the first electronic music I got into (admittedly a fanboy in my yoof and more critic in my adulthood) and although he's certainly guilty of some horrendous cheesy pop he's also made some of the most pioneereing electronic music of the 80's. Everyone always rants on about Kraftwerks more direct influence on dance/techno music buit I often think JMJ's best work is often very overlooked and was way ahead of its time.

His concerts were pretty too.

I don't actually know much about him, except that he invented the Laser Harp or something.

So a "search and destroy" on his back catalogue would be quite helpful to me.

if it weren't for my parents playing Jean Michel Jarre quite regularly as a kid, i probably would have very different music tastes right now.

there is a VHS home recorded tape of Paris La Défense gig in 1990 here, that has been watched. and watched. and watched. and watched.

I liked his stuff when I was a kid (I owned oxygene, equinoxe and zoolook, guess I was around 8-10), I haven't listened to him in years and years, but the little I've heard was way cheesy. I will probably revisit them sooner and later to have my childhood ruined while performing multiple

my dad used to play jmj a lot when i was a kid. and vangelis too. and enigma.

The "I" in my post being my dad.

edit: that doesn't make any sense lol. I try again - My dad owned those records, I just listened to them a lot.

Me like. Heap years ago.

Think Oxygene was one of the first songs I can remember appreciating. I guess I was 4 or 5 at the time. But extraordinarily bright...

  On 2/16/2010 at 1:55 PM, Masonic Boom said:

I don't actually know much about him, except that he invented the Laser Harp or something.

 

So a "search and destroy" on his back catalogue would be quite helpful to me.

my faves

Oxygene

Equinoxe

China Concerts '81

Cities in Concert Huston/Lyon

Waiting for Cousteau (mainly for the long ambient title track)

Oxygene 7-13

Printemps de Bourges

there are gems in other albums but these are the most consistant imho

  On 2/16/2010 at 2:52 PM, soundwave said:

  On 2/16/2010 at 1:55 PM, Masonic Boom said:

I don't actually know much about him, except that he invented the Laser Harp or something.

 

So a "search and destroy" on his back catalogue would be quite helpful to me.

 

my faves

 

Oxygene

Equinoxe

China Concerts '81

Cities in Concert Huston/Lyon

Waiting for Cousteau (mainly for the long ambient title track)

Oxygene 7-13

Printemps de Bourges

 

 

 

there are gems in other albums but these are the most consistant imho

Cheers! That's a great starting point, very useful.

(Wonder how much of this is on Spotify...?)

((Well, Oxygene is, so I'll start right there. Awesome.))

Jean Michel Jarre. The Man, The Myth, The Legend.

(Jean Michel Jarre and Jackson Fourgeaud should do an album together)

I was thinking of bringing this up myself but wondered if I would get laughed off the page!

Is it me or does nobody/media seem to mention him anymore? I cannot remember seeing anything at all about him for years and he never seems to get mentioned in great album lists. I was under the impression that everybody in the world nowadays thought he was a load of rubbish and it was just me who still liked him.

Anyway Exquinoxe 5 was the first electronic track I ever heard, a teacher at school bought it in and played it and I remember clearly sitting there and thinking it was brilliant. So JMJ got me into electronic music. I had almost all of his stuff on cassette up to Waiting for Cousteau. Though most of it I liked back then I would say nowadays only Oxygene and Exquinoxe would stand the test of time. Both are brilliant. Concerts for China was pretty good and a couple of tracks of Zoolook maybe worth a listen.

yeah same story here, bigger brothers played it all the time and the oxygene and chronologie tracks were among the first tracks that i ever liked

I'm not really familiar enough with his music to understand why so many others (Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, etc.) got critical reevaluation in a way that JMJ didn't. But it is kind of code for a certain type of new age-naffness.

There was an interview with Mr Twin where they mentioned JMJ, wasn't there? Where Mr Twin was all "get out of town" at first then sheepishly had to confess "well, yeah" - it's gonna bug me now what exactly was said, but hey, I'm a big picture concepts kind of person not a detail remembering person. ha.

Equinoxe parts 4-7 are just awesome. Really really forward-thinking. I reckon it's always overlooked as Oxygene's sequel, but it's quite a different album. BTW Part 7 = VBS.Redlof.B - 30 years.

See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HosP7iy0r5o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcdQkM58Bw8

Magenetic Fiels is also pretty damn killer. Part 1 is an epic 17 minute masterpiece. Part 3 is really nice and so is the latter half of part 4 where the mood TOTALLY changes.

I personally think the China Concerts album is a good starting point.

Zoolook is just "wow". It sounds a bit dated now but for the time must have sounded out of this world.

Oh and Oxygene 7-13 is probably better than the original.

  On 2/16/2010 at 5:52 PM, Masonic Boom said:

I'm not really familiar enough with his music to understand why so many others (Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, etc.) got critical reevaluation in a way that JMJ didn't. But it is kind of code for a certain type of new age-naffness.

 

There was an interview with Mr Twin where they mentioned JMJ, wasn't there? Where Mr Twin was all "get out of town" at first then sheepishly had to confess "well, yeah" - it's gonna bug me now what exactly was said, but hey, I'm a big picture concepts kind of person not a detail remembering person. ha.

The interview was in Future Music and Mr James reply about JMJ's music was "It's cheesy but I like it."

JMJ has also credited RDJ's work saying something like "no one makes drums sound as loud"

Personally I think a lot of parallels can be drawn from both artist's - they make very melodic yet experimental electronic thats appealing to the masses, they both use thier own image to give instrumental electronic music a face, they both were on top of their game in thier time and both have big fuck off ego's as a result. :-P

  On 2/16/2010 at 6:23 PM, soundwave said:

JMJ has also credited RDJ's work saying something like "no one makes drums sound as loud"

I remember that interview. He said something along the lines of "The Chemical Brothers program the best drums ever, apart from Aphex Twin of course!"

When I was little... like probably 5-7 I saw the music video for Rendezvous 4 on TV a few times. Me and my brother loved it so much, I remember getting up and dancing around like crazy.

When I looked into his music more recently I didn't really get into it, most of it isn't that kinda stuff really... I guess I actually prefer his poppier, dancier stuff to his electronic orchestral weirdness.