Oxygene - the beginning

In the early 1970s, the young Jean Michel Jarre started to explore various directions of the art of composition and sound design. These explorations were based on his background in traditional music education and experimental work at the GRM center in Paris. Jarre composed pop songs, an electronic opera, advertising music, soundtracks and environmental music, but he was not happy with the way music was created according to traditional rules, both in terms of composition, sounds and instruments. He felt tied up by predefined norms and stiff expectations. With money earned from songs written for other artists and producers, Jarre started to focus on something he was not sure where would end. He realized he could not put his new music in any known category, and it didn’t sound like anything he had envisioned beforehand. Having finished his album, Jarre tried to sell it to the record companies, but it bore no fruits, as it was not disco, not classical and not jazz. It didn’t even have lyrics, pretty singers or proper song titles. Jarre had to turn to Francis Dreyfus, who had hired Jarre as a song writer, musician, composer and lyricist for some time already. Dreyfus, with his small independent record label Disques Motors, had experience from progressive music by being the one who introduced Pink Floyd and David Bowie to France. And since Jarre had written hit songs for other Motors artists earlier, he was willing to give Jarre a chance. Then, at an art exhibition, Jarre bought a painting that depicted a human skull breaking free from the Earth. The paininting was called Oxygene.It has been more than 30 years since Oxygene kickstarted a revolution in modern music, and the amazing thing is that the album does not sound 30 years old today. Certainly the old analogue sounds are there, but if the album had come out today, it would not have sounded dated. It’s transparency, fluidity, and spaciousness makes it as futuristic and timeless today as it was 30 years ago. But, the album is more than timeless; it was the big bang of electronic music.

Actually, electronic music was made before Oxygene. Even some albums with a certain degree of success. Artists like Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd and Walter Carlos had explored ambient and electronic music before Jarre, and synthesizers had existed for some 15 years. However, electronic music as a genre of it’s own did not exist. Electronic music was seen as a novelty, something exotic that prog rockers dabbled with. Those who had a special interest in electronic music (not to be confused with people interested in the instruments for their imitation of “real” music, or the casual use of synths among other instruments) were either engineers and scientists, studio musicians, art-scene weirdos, or a limited crowd of music fans. Even if well known bands such as ELP and Yes had huge walls of modular synths at their concerts, they did not do electronic music as such. Then came Oxygene, which charted in France and around the world in 1977 and out-sold other electronic albums many times over. For the first time, many millions of listeners opened their eyes to beautiful music made on electronic instruments. Few people knew what the instruments were or could do, but no doubt did Oxygene represent something new to millions of people. It was not the first electronic album, but it was perhaps the first pure electronic music album that reached a wide audience and brought (was later was to be known as) electronica to the people. It’s not a surprise that Oxygene was named the most important electronic album of all times in the Future Music reader poll around the Millennium.

Oxygene was thus essential in paving way for a new type of music. Other similar artists followed (Yello, Space, Kitaro, YMO, Yanni, Software, Art of Noise, etc.), “space pop” was now commercially possible, and a surge of new electronic pop groups in the 1980s (Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Human League, OMD, Erasure, Alphaville, Duran Duran, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys, and many more) followed in the wake of Jarre’s success and proved that synthesizers were not just an exotic feature of music, but a staple of music making. While many bands credited Kraftwerk as a big inspiration, they were musicians - record buyers owed a great deal to Jarre for introducing them to electronic music. Jarre’s high media profile made him one of the few original electronica artists to actually reach the masses, which sadly is still true today.

With Oxygene, electronic music was selling as many copies as the biggest selling rock and disco albums of it’s time; at least 12 million copies went over the counter, sales today may approach 15 million. The album is still, more than 30 years after it’s release, the biggest selling French album internationally. The uniqueness of Oxygene is emphasised by the fact that the scale of Jarre’s success was not repeated by other artists or bands, while Jarre continued to sell millions of his subsequent albums. The fact that Oxygene was release during the punk wave is also worth noting; “punk” was a reaction against the smooth disco (perhaps a reaction to most things) and one could not anticipate that it would be electronic music, then in it’s infancy, that would introduce something new to the music world. Add to this the fact that Oxygene had no lyrics, and the phenomenon grows. Music without lyrics was not popular at that time, this was before new age music emerged, and instrumental music was either classical music or jazz. Today’s dance music with no or few lyrics did not have it’s equivalent then either. The notion that music without lyrics could communicate was a new idea to many, an oxymoron. Nevertheless, Oxygene proved it could communicate across all borders, with no worries about language barriers, age gaps, or cultural background. A few years later, Oxygene helped making Jarre the first popular Western artist to play in post-Mao China, thanks to it’s lack of words and richness of emotions. Against all odds, Oxygene became a success: “I had all the odds against me. I was French, I made music on machines, and did not have lyrics. In a TV interview I had to explain how I made the music. I walked over to the TV studio camera, knocked on the lense, and said; this is a machine, it is not dangerous. I really had to explain electronic music”, Jarre said later.

Oxygene was also probably the first album that successfully combined state-of-the-art technology with instantly recogniseable melodies, a shimmering futuristic sound, a perfectionistic production and an overall universal theme. Compared to other albums released around the same time, Oxygene took huge leaps forward in sound design, mixing and sonoric depth. Other electronic music producers came from the disco business, the experimental camp, the rock field or were engineers. Jarre was not only the composer, musician and performer, he was also a complete artist who elevated the album beyond mere music, especially with the famous skull artwork that predicted the global environmental issues of the 00s with some 30 years! This is why the music of Oxygene is still relevant today.

The way the album turned out was not planned. Jean Michel Jarre wanted to free himself from traditional composition by working with intuition and emotions. That is why you on the album will find six different pieces, though they still evoke the same feeling of melancholy. Maybe the electtronic version of “the blues”. It is common and maybe Jarre’s hope that you will get many different associations and visions by listening to the album, but musically it is not very happy and cheerful, like the sequels. Not to say you will be depressed by listening to it; on the contrary, on a bleak and rainy day maybe it will massage your soul and lift your spirit, because the music of Oxygene corresponds with very human emotions. Oxygene was never crafted with mathematically calculated notes on a paper, or restricted by the limitations of the technology, hence the album is not technological. In fact, it is not electronic music at all. Says Jarre; “I do not have other emotions than other composers, wether it is a Mongol shaman thousands of years ago or a modern rock musician or a European caveman who bangs to stones together. We communicate the same things, just with different tools”. It is not the music that is electronic, just the instruments. Oxygene is therefore the perfect example of how emotional depth can be communicated through technology.

This article was originally going to be an analyzis of Oxygene from a musical posittion. I planned to dive into each note and sequencer pattern. However, I do not think there is a need to explain what Oxygene sounds like. First, it is difficult to explain with words what abstract music sounds like. And second, I believe you know every note and chord change very well, enough to play back the album in your sleep, or backwards, with one arm tied behind your back. I’d rather want you to put on Oxygene again, and listen. Enjoy!

(This article was written by Steinar Larsen and Glenn Folkvord, and first printed in the IMAGES magazine in 1997. Updated and reproduced with kind permission by www.planetorigo.com)