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Jean Michel Jarre: House & Techno Are Past
“Techno and house are styles of music made for dance floors; yes, some tracks can be heard outside clubs, but we should never forget that it’s music mainly made for clubs. What happened was that like all phenomena, they suddenly started being hyped and became fashionable, so techno and house moved out of the clubs, away from their source, onto the street. But that change was a fashion phenomenon and that phenomenon is now behind us. It’s more or less finished though but doesn’t mean that house or techno for clubs are finished, because both styles are timeless and will remain.”
Sitting in a darkened Soho recording studio on a sunny autumn afternoon, Jean Michel Jarre speaks eloquently as dissects the recent history of electronic music, his heavy French accent accentuating his clearly considered opinions. And as one of electronic music’s earliest and most influential pioneers he’s certainly well qualified to share themnot least given his astonishing commercial success (he’s sold over 55 million albums to date, most for his 1976 masterpiece Oxygene).
Passionate and driven (‘I’m not yet satisfied with what I’ve done, I consider my work to as unfinished’, he stresses) he’s as interested in the future as the past, as well as still prone to the occasional touch of shameless self promotion.
“When I made Oxygene and Equinox, I never thought of them as being linked to futuristic ideas or those kind of romantic visions of the future that were common in the 70s, and now we are in 2004 and that future is behind us in a sense, or rather the sci-fi space age vision is behind us,” he says.
I never considered my music as music of the future, I saw it as music of today, or timeless music and I always tried to create music with that feeling that time was in suspension,” he continues.
“And talking about space, my new album Aero is all about the conquest of space, but the audio space not Outer Space.”
The audio space he’s hoping to conquer is 5.1surround sound, the 5 speaker standard he’s applied for Aero. ‘Revisiting his greatest hits’ (as the press release puts it) and featuring three brand new tracks, the record represents a radical leap in technology, says JM.
“I said to myself, after mono, stereo, the next step should be Aero- from one speaker to two speakers to five,” he explains.
“I always dreamed of being surrounded by music and with this new 5 speaker system, that makes it like you’re in a cinema, it’s obviously something totally different.”
Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): How difficult was the process of recording in surround sound?
Jean Michel Jarre: “When I first thought of taking on this album as the first real 5.1 surround project I thought it would be a piece of cake (easy- slang Ed), in a very naïve and pretentious way, but it turned out to be a nightmare because I discovered it was much more difficult, maybe five times more difficult, than doing a normal album. Because exploring space in 3D sound is a unique experience. But one of the reasons I decided to become involved was because ever since Oxygene and the beginning of my career I always thought electronic music should be shared in an immersed way. I always considered electronic music to be a sensual experience, physical, almost sexual. For me it has to work on the tummy and through the skin, that’s what electronic music has always been about. In a sense, I’ve always been frustrated by stereo, by this two dimensional flat sound it’s had. So for Aero I decided to revisit some of my existing tracks, performing them note for note again. I reconstructed each track entirely to share the original idea I had in my mind when I did them the first time. It was an anti-frustration process.”
Skrufff: How significant do you see this new sound standard?
Jean Michel Jarre: “It’s a definite sound revolution that offers another way of listening to music and reacting to it. The CD era for me was a bad time, a hard time and something that I never felt enthusiastic about. I think it was a regression compared to the vinyl era and we lost the warmth and the emotional response that was present in vinyl. I think the crisis in the music industry today is not due to piracy but is due to the CD era, because the CD was crap, quite frankly. It was based on the idea that CDs should be sold like yoghurts, so then suddenly, instead of providing this idea that you should escape from the day to day life like it is when you go into a book shop or cinema, suddenly you’re in a supermarket lost in the middle of yoghurts and boxes of tissues served by people who don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m absolutely convinced that what I’m describing created a divorce between the audience and their support of music. We need to restore this emotional link through a more sensual, more emotional approach of sound.
When our grandparents moved from mono to stereo people said ‘Why is this necessary? Why do you need two speakers to listen to one orchestra or one singer?’ Obviously today, we’re all convinced that stereo is better than mono and now it’s time to go to the real thing, which is to be surrounded by sound, which is how our ears are designed to listen to sounds from the side and behind as well as the front. Even if you have a prelude from Chopin played by a soloist on the piano it’s the same as for electronic music, but electronic music is the right medium even more so.”
Skrufff: Oxygene was a massively successful groundbreaking electronic music album in the 70s, did you have a clear vision when you created it?
Jean Michel Jarre: “I was obsessed with the idea of creating a bridge between pop and classical music and also to create what I call anti-pattern electronic music. What I mean by that is to make music that even if it’s repetitive is still in constant evolution. I used a lot of fading in and fading out and sometimes had no patterns at all. For example, Id use sequences that lasted for 34 bars and a half; I didn’t care. What was important was the global (overall) movements, like in classical music, in a sense. After Oxygene I think I lost myself in all the sequencers and midis and all the equipment that came along, everybody started thinking like mathematicians. Electronic music at the time of Oxygene wasn’t made in that way, and that’s the reason Oxygene had some kind of magic.”
Skrufff: As well as you, there was Vangelis, John Carpenter and one or two others making ambient electronic music but few seemed to follow in your footsteps, why not?
Jean Michel Jarre: “Because in the 80s everybody left the electronic scene, even bands like Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream, left it. Vangelis and myself were probably the only two to stay in that field during the grunge and punk movements. Then in the 90s we were joined by DJs and people from the techno and house scenes. We were quite on our own for a good ten years.”
Skrufff: You’’ve been an ambassador for the United Nations for 12 years now, how do you see the role of music in politics?
Jean Michel Jarre: “ I think music can certainly help raise consciousness because it attracts young people and hopefully we can bring attention as artists to ideas that might be abstract. For instance, take the problem of fresh drinking water; this is a major problem worldwide. As we are talking, a child is dying every 10 seconds because of a lack of fresh water. There’s only George Bush who can think that oil is more important than water, otherwise he would have invaded Canada instead of Iraq. Musicians and artists can have a political role in this way. For example, I’m going to do a series of concerts in deserts over the next five years, just to attract young people to the issue. I want to attract hype to the issue of fresh water, to make it the wave (trend) of the week, or the year. If I can do that, then that’s a success.That was also an aspect of Oxygene which came out at a time when people were starting to become conscious of environmental issues, it was political but not in a politician’s way, rather in a human way.”
Skrufff: a recent article in a British newspaper talked about electronic soundtracks to films like Clockwork Orange and Assault on Precinct 13 and suggested 70s electronic music was futuristic, when you made Oxygene in 76 was there a futuristic of aspect of the record?
Jean Michel Jarre: “I always thought Oxygene and Equinox were not at all linked with futuristic ideas or those kind of romantic visions that the 70s had of the future; that 2001 syndrome. Now we are in 2004 and the future is behind us in a sense, or the sci-fi is behind us. I never considered my music as music of the future, I saw it as music of today, or timeless music and I always tried to create music with that feeling that time was in suspension”
Skrufff: Were you never interested in the futuristic side of life?
Jean Michel Jarre: “I’ve always been interested in the future, absolutely, one of my closest friends is Arthur C Clarke, the author of 2001. We even did a project in 2001 in Japan and I’ve always been a fan of science fiction. What’s interesting nowadays is that sci-fi is behind us in a sense because of us going through 2000 and 2001. Lots of fantasies were based on that time, the whole Big Brother concept, for example, and we see that the Big Brother hasn’t really been winning, it’s more that people with laptops have become interlinked and are keeping their individuality more than ever.”
Skrufff: Many conspiracy sites would suggest we’re closer to Big Brother times than ever with all the surveillance that now goes on, microchips in people. . .
Jean Michel Jarre: “Yes, that’s true but on the other hand you can take your laptop, go to the Himalayas and make an album and distribute it on the internet, so it works both ways. Technology is more and more sophisticated but the way of hijacking technology is similarly more and more sophisticated, there’s a balance.”
Skrufff: You’ve sold 60 million albums?
Jean Michel Jarre: “They say it’s between 50 and 55 million.”
Skrufff: What stops you from retiring and lying on a beach?
Jean Michel Jarre: “I never thought about doing that because lots of times I reinvested lots of the money I made in concerts or stage projects and research for instruments. And also I’m not yet satisfied with what I’ve done, I consider my work to as unfinished. I have lots of unfinished projects whether albums or concerts and I want to be able to improve myself to say this time I did at least decent work, and this isn’t the case yet.”
Skrufff: “Bladerunner’s one of my favourite films and albums (‘Me too’, JMJ) and I must admit I got into Vangelis before you, even though you made Oxygene six years before . . .
Jean Michel Jarre: “That’s funny because I almost did that soundtrack.”
Skrufff: Do you know Vangelis personally?
Jean Michel Jarre: “Yes, we worked with the same engineers or assistants, I have a lot of respect for him. He’s more involved in soundtracks which is quite different from records, even if he’s made lots of soundtracks with his records. His biggest hits come from soundtracks more than solo albums. Though did you know Vangelis wasn’t happy with the soundtrack to Bladerunner? He didn’t want to release it originally and it didn’t come out for years. Then he eventually remixed the whole thing and released it as an album. I was always astonished that so many movie directors of sci-fi movies hardly ever used synthesizers, but instead used symphonic orchestras, people like George Lucas or Steven Speilberg using John Williams for example. And it was for a very simple reason; because the impact of a symphonic orchestra is ten times more efficient than any synthesizer in the world, at that time anyway, because the digital synthesizers weren’t good enough. It’s only recently that the new technology can compete with orchestras. The sound on Aero for example is unbeatable in its impact and it’s what Bladerunner would need, or the next Bladerunner would need.”
Skrufff: Do you believe in aliens?
Jean Michel Jarre: “I feel like an alien so often personally that I have to believe in them.”
Skrufff: And the afterlife?
Jean Michel Jarre: “I’m quite convinced in the reality of the afterlife and also the before life, ie a person having several lives. I believe and feel that to be true, more and more.”
Skrufff: Do you believe in astrology?
Jean Michel Jarre: “It’s not a question of belief, astrology is a science, it’s something that’s been forgotten over the centuries but it was a science of the Egyptians and the Greks. Nowadays with the cynical blasé attitude we have towards the world, it’s considered esoteric, when astrology is actually a precise and real science.”
Skrufff: What advice do you have for someone wanting to create their own Oxygene?
Jean Michel Jarre: “They must believe in themselves and avoid following any fashion and also be aware that if they want to be an artist it’s not going to be the easiest way for having a happy life. It’s tough and it’s difficult; yes and rewarding sometimes and it can be a privilege but it’s not an easy route for being happy. It’s also important to never forget that you are just a filter from somebody up there feeding you with inspiration, it’s not coming from yourself. As long as you don’t forget that, you can go with it.”
Skrufff: How much has your happiness coincided with success?
Jean Michel Jarre: “Hardly at all. Success is a distorting process for friendship and for love. It’s distorting for friendship because your friends change and for love and personal relationships it’s hard to have a private life that matches your professional life when you have no free weekends, no holidays, days or nights that you can plan. The only solution probably, is to have a relationship with another artist and to hope that your free time can match.”
Aero is out now.
http://mfile.akamai.com/9139/rm/stream.wmg.com/wmi/uk/wsm/jmj/aerology_hi.ram
http://mfile.akamai.com/9139/rm/stream.wmg.com/wmi/uk/wsm/jmj/oxygene_4_hi.ram
Interview by: Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
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