List | J | Jean-Michel Jarre | 'Oxygene 7-13' CD 1997

Track:	Name:	Time:
1.	Oxygene Part 7	11:41
2.	Oxygene Part 8	3:54
3.	Oxygene Part 9	6:13
4.	Oxygene Part 10	4:16
5.	Oxygene Part 11	4:58
6.	Oxygene Part 12	5:40
7.	Oxygene Part 13	4:27
	Total	41:11

Comments:

Twenty years after the release of his first album, Jarre returns with his old style and a sequel to his debut in what looks very much like a feeble attempt to cash in on past glory and the retro-analogue hype of the day. So is it? Well, perhaps it is, but it's good enough for me to not care about that. After having about a decade of mere so-so Jarre albums, this is in fact a lot better than what you might expect after just hearing about it. In many ways it's very similar to the original 'Oxygene', but it's also a lot more fresh and modern without getting too much into the flavour-of-the-day hype-techno. It's actually sounds so old it turns out to be quite timeless in a sense. It might not be quite as inspired and groundbreaking as his earlier material, but it does the job well as a sequel, and many of the moods and ambiences of the original 'Oxygene' can be rediscovered here without making me feel it's merely a simple copy to cash in on the hype. I do think that calling Jarre "the godfather of techno" is to stretch it a bit, which certain people (Simone at MTV for one) did when this album was promoted.

I had the privilege of seeing this gifted musician live in the Globe in Stockholm in May '97 when he was doing his first indoors tour ever, promoting this album. The show was spectacular, with lots of lasers, smoke, big movie screens (a bit like a 'light' version of his old huge outdoors concerts) and of course excellent music. He even toyed around with a promo copy of the Nord Lead II, on which he played the old 'Oxygene IV'.

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