Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[Aqanique]

Hello!

So I've always had this question in the back of my mind ever since I started listening to Jarre's music, but how come there's basically no kind of recorded demos or outtakes of any of his stuff? I doubt that he's able to record all of his stuff perfectly in one go (despite how talented he is), so does he just dispose of the stuff he doesn't like afterwards or do demos for his albums just simply not exist?

With other musicians like Mike Oldfield I've found that demos for Tubular Bells were easy to find on YouTube, so I assumed the same would be the case for Jarre's music. I was always really curious to hear rough works of things from Oxygene, Equinoxe, Rendez-Vous, etc., but when I started looking for them online I found basically nothing apart from Sessions 2000.

So far, the closest things that I've heard that could be considered "demos" would probably be this short snippet of Orient Express from an interview compilation and a "making of" Metamorphoses video:





I hope that we'll eventually get some kind of "studio sessions" album apart from Sessions 2000 that shows off the creative process behind some of his hits. I'd especially love to hear a recording of him and Hank Marvin playing London Kid over the phone to each other since I recently watched "Making the Steamroller Fly", but I can only hope!

If anyone has an answer to why there's a lack of demos in Jarre's discography or has any idea what he does with them, I'd really like to know, thanks!

[shadow]

Outside of a handful of alternate mixes on the various compilation albums, Jarre seems to have zero interest in releasing demos and/or alternate mixes despite there being a lot out there. As too why, who knows unfortunately.

[Finaero]

I sort of remember there being some kind of a Hey Gagarin demo version floating around JMJ sites at some point.

Other than that, I think (one of) the closest ones in the same vein as the same kind of demos as PSB, Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield have released (or are on YT these days) is the pre-mix of the La Defense version of Magnetic Fields 2:



(Man, if only all the other pre-versions from that concert (and many others, ofc) got leaked )

[Dr_Jones]

My speculation is that JMJ thinks something is ready for release when he says it is. Everything before that is not ready for the people.
The closest we come to demos for songs is something like Une Alarme Qui Swingue (1992), which was a combination of Chronologie 4 and 5 as one track.

[Aqanique]

the pre-mix of the La Defense version of Magnetic Fields 2:

(Man, if only all the other pre-versions from that concert (and many others, ofc) got leaked )

Oh yeah, this one totally slipped my mind! I just put in the two most interesting ones that I could think of off the top of my head into my post, but it's definitely an interesting listen.

I've heard a lot of weird stories about the MF2 Défense track but I have no idea if they're true, like how apparently it was leaked by a crew member or band mate that worked on the concert, or that (like you said) there are other pre-mixes for the other tracks and that the majority of the concert was playback. (I don't really want to believe the second one since it's one of my favourite concerts he's done... )

As for the Hey Gagarin demo you're thinking of, could it be this alternative version? It's the only one I can really think of that could be confused with a demo:

[Aqanique]

My speculation is that JMJ thinks something is ready for release when he says it is. Everything before that is not ready for the people.
The closest we come to demos for songs is something like Une Alarme Qui Swingue (1992), which was a combination of Chronologie 4 and 5 as one track.

Yeah, I always get the impression that Jarre is a big perfectionist when it comes to his music from the documentaries and interviews that I've seen, so it's no wonder he never releases the demos because he probably thinks it isn't worth the hassle.

I also have an interesting story about Une Alarme Qui Swingue that I don't think I've ever brought up on the forum before.

Before I made my channel on YouTube to upload my PDLC remaster, I was actually working on a full remaster of the Swatch the World concert for my first proper video. I never actually finished it though since I wasn't happy with the results and I unfortunately deleted all of the tracks I'd mixed on Audacity to free up space on my laptop.

The most notable mixes that I had were both the intro and rappel versions of Une Alarme Qui Swingue which I adapted from this amazing cover:



...and a pretty interesting mix of Second Rendez-Vous, since it seemed to be a combination of the original Rendez-Vous album with the "Images" mix to give the choir and brass band an extra punch to their sound.

Maybe I'll revisit it some day once I get my USB that'll give me some more storage to play around with, since I've been meaning to upload my Monaco remaster that's been stuck in CapCut for MONTHS now, but until then it remains lost to time.

[Finaero]

Whoops, completely forgot about Une Alarme Qui Swingue Funnily enough that one did get an official release in the form of the TV broadcast (VHS?) I think before the Chronologie album was released, so that's like the reverse of the usual "demo versions get released years later" pattern (e.g. Pink Floyd's 2011 remasters and PSB's Further Listening discs from 2001/2017)

I'd also say there's a high chance that the Planet Jarre version of Magnetic Fields 2 could be a demo version (and of course the MFS track on that release was specifically titled as a demo, but y'know), maybe the version of Arpegiateur without the audience noises used in the 2025-> tours was discovered at the same time AND maybe that one's a demo as well, who knows.