Jean Michel Jarre, Equinoxe
The massive follow-up to Oxygène.
In 1978 this is what everyone imagined the future would sound like. Frenchman Jarre (son of soundtrack composer Maurice Jarre) followed up his 1977 monster-seller Oxygène with a similar wash of bubbling synths and pulsating electronic soundscapes. This time he introduced more rhythmic, dynamic elements and sequenced bass lines, but the overall feel remains one of aspiration, as if he's striving to capture every mind-boggling science-fiction concept he's ever read or seen and sculpt a glowing sonic equivalent.
It's customary to downplay his pioneering influence nowadays: as he's sold over 80 million albums (over 10 million with Equinoxe alone), he doesn't receive the critical reverence granted to the more enigmatic, elusive likes of Kraftwerk or even Tangerine Dream. Yet Jarre brought the genres of “electronica,” “ambience” and “New Age synth-pop” to the populace before those terms had even been coined. An obsessive customiser of equipment, he used over a dozen synths on this opus. Sure, some of the noises and whooshes seem primitive or showy now, but his influence has been far-reaching. Like Mike Oldfield or later Giorgio Moroder, he was sneered at by purist punks, but was, given the tools of the day, genuinely exploring and attempting to push the sonic envelope, rather than shouting about what should NOT be done.
There's a concept of sorts to Equinoxe: although wordless, it follows, in eight parts, a human's passage from dawn to night. Parts 4 and 5 were refrain-rich singles which have perhaps been devalued by being mimicked by every Olympics theme or NASA documentary accompaniment since. His inventions have sometimes, in lesser hands, been mashed to clichés. The '80s drew good and bad from his templates. Equinoxe however remains a captivating, enchanting journey. The man fully deserves the fact that an asteroid has been named after him.
