Ditto! A bit wet that night.Been a fan for years. Oxygene is my fave. I was at Docklands in the rain, was fabulous.
I dived into electronic music as soon as I was aware it existed and I’d certainly found Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream before Oxygene was a hit in the UK (1977). I certainly had Autobahn, TEE and Rubycon by that point. I remember thinking Oxygene was quite cheesy as I’ve always been far more interested in rhythm and texture rather than melody, but I warmed to it and still really like it, as I did to Giorgio Moroder’s stuff with Donna Summer around the same time. All this stuff has been part of my life since I was 13-14 or so and overlapped with shifting taste through eras of prog, punk, new-wave and ‘80s synth pop, indie, techno etc. I’ve always liked a good bleep.
IIRC it was recorded at home, though home for JMJ, son of composer Maurice Jarre, may have had rather more facilities than the typical dwelling!
You must be a couple of years older than me. ( I was 11 mostly in ‘77)
IIRC it was recorded at home, though home for JMJ, son of composer Maurice Jarre, may have had rather more facilities than the typical dwelling!
I’d have been 14 at the time. A real area of discovery for me as it was the point I was leaving T. Rex, Slade etc and discovering more long-form stuff like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, plus the stoner rock of Hawkwind, and whatever Groundhogs, Man, Nektar, Gong etc are. I was finding a lot of interesting stuff that I still enjoy today, mainly via exploring friends older brothers/sisters record collections. That against the backdrop of the punk and new-wave thing that was happening. It was a good time trying to deep-dive a whole world of stuff and figuring out what I liked. I saved my dinner money at school and had a paper round, so I could go buy a second hand album or two each weekend, plus I traded stuff with other kids. I started early!
Docklands in the rain
Any fans on here?
Everyone knows Oxygene and Equinoxe, but any fans of his later output? I've been revisiting his back catalogue in the last few days having watched a documentary on how he came to make Oxygene and forgotten how good some of it is (some of it isn't so good I'll grant you).
Along with Kraftwerk and Joy Division, JMJ is the third in my trilogy of early musical influences that shaped a lot of my future listening habits.
Oxygene still sounds amazing today and it's hard to believe it was recorded in a kitchen on an 8 track in the long hot summer of 1976... nearly 50 years ago ... yikes I'm getting old.
Anyway what are people's favourites outside of his best known work? I rather like Oxymore, Electronica 1 & 2 and Metamorpheses.
All the albums from Oxygene to Cities In Concert and in nice non-brickwalled early masterings.
Yes, JMJ always stuck me as the acceptable, overground face of electronic music, whereas Tangerine Dream were the real deal, known only to the hip.I dived into electronic music as soon as I was aware it existed and I’d certainly found Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream before Oxygene was a hit in the UK (1977). I certainly had Autobahn, TEE and Rubycon by that point. I remember thinking Oxygene was quite cheesy as I’ve always been far more interested in rhythm and texture rather than melody, but I warmed to it and still really like it, as I did to Giorgio Moroder’s stuff with Donna Summer around the same time. All this stuff has been part of my life since I was 13-14 or so and overlapped with shifting taste through eras of prog, punk, new-wave and ‘80s synth pop, indie, techno etc. I’ve always liked a good bleep.
Yes, JMJ always stuck me as the acceptable, overground face of electronic music, whereas Tangerine Dream were the real deal, known only to the hip.