Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[supersilent]

I'm surprised at the typical portrait of Jarre as the inventor of electronic music. Although schooled at GRM, Jarre has always been and will always be a commercial oriented pop artist - which his recent release is a good example of.

IMO his best records, Oxygene and Equinoxe were also flawed by his catchy pop tunes which introduced a purely electronic timbre to the pop industry. While many are attracted to his more ambient approach on some tracks, it was the hit singles which really made his career and people who are into his ambient tracks should be aware of the enormous influence of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze on Jarres Oxygene and Equinoxe. Even the synthesizer setup is remarkably similar. Take Schulze's Timewind, 1975 (a year before Oxygene release): ARP 2600, EMS Synthi A, ELKA, Farfisa.... I wonder how much of a coincidence it was that Jarre wanted to work with much of the same gear...

There are passages from Tangerine Dream's Phaedra which must have been studied in detail by Jarre, very similar-sounding. And Popol Vuh's soundtrack for Werner Herzog's Aguirre is the minimalistic prototype of Jarrres much later Waiting for Cousteau (his best track).

[supersilent]

I don't think the one was the others influence like it is today. Of course they must have listened to each others stuff but you can't say that one was the others teacher. The setup is a coinsidence I think, those were very common synths for that time as it was the beginning of affordable synths. Roland and Yamaha were not into the market in the beginning, it was mostly Moog or Arp.

[Equinoxe]

I'm surprised at the typical portrait of Jarre as the inventor of electronic music. Although schooled at GRM, Jarre has always been and will always be a commercial oriented pop artist - which his recent release is a good example of.

IMO his best records, Oxygene and Equinoxe were also flawed by his catchy pop tunes which introduced a purely electronic timbre to the pop industry. While many are attracted to his more ambient approach on some tracks, it was the hit singles which really made his career and people who are into his ambient tracks should be aware of the enormous influence of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze on Jarres Oxygene and Equinoxe. Even the synthesizer setup is remarkably similar. Take Schulze's Timewind, 1975 (a year before Oxygene release): ARP 2600, EMS Synthi A, ELKA, Farfisa.... I wonder how much of a coincidence it was that Jarre wanted to work with much of the same gear...

There are passages from Tangerine Dream's Phaedra which must have been studied in detail by Jarre, very similar-sounding. And Popol Vuh's soundtrack for Werner Herzog's Aguirre is the minimalistic prototype of Jarrres much later Waiting for Cousteau (his best track).

Well Jarre was using the synthi and farfisas in his early works before Oxygene,so its not like he was influenced by TD or Schulz Per se to use them,I don't think that Oxygene or Equinoxe were flawed by the catchy tunes,Far from it,TD and Schulz still remain pretty anonymous in terms of Musical History mainly because there music is followed by an elite group rather than mustering up new listeners,Jarre was neither,but retained a public interest far greater than that of those Latter artists because of his commercial approach,nd still ratians that today,if you ask people in the street who they have heard of Chances are they would say Jarre and that Oxygene 4 would be the most reknown song they would connect to,TD and Schulz and Possiibly Kraftwerk are very low key in terms of Commercial appeal,and chances are most people would not know of them so Much

I'm sure Jarre was/Is Influenced by others of that wave in the 70s why else would he not be,in order to learn whats appealing or happening he would have to know the competition or others making those sort of Tracks,You have to remember that those Instruments like the Synthis were only bought by the rich and famous due to there hefty price tags so anyone who was anyone in the electronic world would be using them and due to the minimal numbers of them made,most people would be listed to be using them,so it would be hard not to know of the Instruments without knowing which artist were creating Music with them and possibly hear what there doing with it,so in a way I doubt Jarre would have not known,but whether they actually insipred him who knows??but if he's already using the Synthi its only a natural progression to advance and use the ARPs and Moogs etc to further enhance the sound creation abilities


I doubt Jarre entered into the Music world Blind to others around him doing electronic stuff,He himself has been doing it since the early 70s years before he was commercially acceptable but at the same I Doubt that had it not been for TD or others he would have rather taken up the Guitar full time rather than composing using synthesizers,if that was the case I would have said he would stopped using them years ago and gone back to his upbringings

In that day and age ,it would have been an Exciting opportunity to work with something other than Just acoustic means,why wouldn't anyone want to work with a VCS3 which opens up new avenues of sound exploration,Jarre was learningthe fundementals of that approach with the GRM so deciding to leave it only showed his following to explore more rather than turn his back on it and go back to standard music needs

He's been pretty much in his own league of Genre since commercial success of Oxygene and bringing the Musical concert concept further into the future influencing possibly every other major artist in some way,it would be hard not to be impressed by his Son et Lumieres if your a pop sensation and dream of doing something of that scale or draw insipration from it

so it sort of shows that although you may think Oxygene and Equinoxe were flawed by catchy tunes that they still remain the most popular between fans,so are they really Flawed????,the fact hes followed those up with many more albums(many far removed from the Oand E style) says there not Flawed to me,and I don't think that TD or Schulz had any more influence on his motivation,but I'm sure he was aware of those artists and many others at the time of his begginings

[Equinoxe]

I think the revolutionary thing that JMJ did was give the electronic sound soul without being over the top (like earlier Vangelis or Tomita), defeating the idea that electronic music was cold and clinical (Kraftwerk and Wendy/Walter Carlos spring to mind).

[(Unknown)]

Well Jarre was using the synthi and farfisas in his early works before Oxygene,so its not like he was influenced by TD or Schulz Per se to use them,I don't think that Oxygene or Equinoxe were flawed by the catchy tunes,Far from it,TD and Schulz still remain pretty anonymous in terms of Musical History mainly because there music is followed by an elite group rather than mustering up new listeners,Jarre was neither,but retained a public interest far greater than that of those Latter artists because of his commercial approach,nd still ratians that today,if you ask people in the street who they have heard of Chances are they would say Jarre and that Oxygene 4 would be the most reknown song they would connect to,TD and Schulz and Possiibly Kraftwerk are very low key in terms of Commercial appeal,and chances are most people would not know of them so Much

I'm sure Jarre was/Is Influenced by others of that wave in the 70s why else would he not be,in order to learn whats appealing or happening he would have to know the competition or others making those sort of Tracks,You have to remember that those Instruments like the Synthis were only bought by the rich and famous due to there hefty price tags so anyone who was anyone in the electronic world would be using them and due to the minimal numbers of them made,most people would be listed to be using them,so it would be hard not to know of the Instruments without knowing which artist were creating Music with them and possibly hear what there doing with it,so in a way I doubt Jarre would have not known,but whether they actually insipred him who knows??but if he's already using the Synthi its only a natural progression to advance and use the ARPs and Moogs etc to further enhance the sound creation abilities


I doubt Jarre entered into the Music world Blind to others around him doing electronic stuff,He himself has been doing it since the early 70s years before he was commercially acceptable but at the same I Doubt that had it not been for TD or others he would have rather taken up the Guitar full time rather than composing using synthesizers,if that was the case I would have said he would stopped using them years ago and gone back to his upbringings

In that day and age ,it would have been an Exciting opportunity to work with something other than Just acoustic means,why wouldn't anyone want to work with a VCS3 which opens up new avenues of sound exploration,Jarre was learningthe fundementals of that approach with the GRM so deciding to leave it only showed his following to explore more rather than turn his back on it and go back to standard music needs

He's been pretty much in his own league of Genre since commercial success of Oxygene and bringing the Musical concert concept further into the future influencing possibly every other major artist in some way,it would be hard not to be impressed by his Son et Lumieres if your a pop sensation and dream of doing something of that scale or draw insipration from it

so it sort of shows that although you may think Oxygene and Equinoxe were flawed by catchy tunes that they still remain the most popular between fans,so are they really Flawed????,the fact hes followed those up with many more albums(many far removed from the Oand E style) says there not Flawed to me,and I don't think that TD or Schulz had any more influence on his motivation,but I'm sure he was aware of those artists and many others at the time of his begginings

Nice post. I would never disagree with the notion that Jarre is the most well-known electronic composer in the world, with Kraftwerk or Vangelis at a close second. Jarre was indeed the introduction to the field for me as well, and I was an ardid fan up until Chronologie. However, gradually discovering the history of electronic music, I've come to realize that the parts of Jarre's music I enjoy the most were the ones most clearly inspired by the mentioned artists - but as you point out, these are more obscure and have been overshadowed by Jarre as a result of his commercial success. No fault of his to be sure, but part of the media package of Jarre as the innovator of electronic music. I think that my point was simply that there were others before him, and chances are that people who are into certain sides of Jarre's output would actually like these pioneers even better -at least I do.

You are of course right about the limited availability of affordable gear back then.

As for soul in electronic music, Jarre was certainly less cold than Kraftwerk, but very similar to Tangerine Dream et al. The main difference is the more pop-oriented approach of some tracks (following the approach of his many collaborations in the pop world at the time), the superior production and the genius of Michel Geiss. ...