Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[Pat Gleeson]

There's the internet for you in a nutshell. Instant gratification, disposable product ....

[shadow]

En attendant Cousteau his last great album... I thought those were Chronologie and Oxygene 7-13... Although I still love his post 2000 work

[jeanbatman]

Then again... En attendant Cousteau was the last great Jarre album (except for maybe Oxy 7-13).(...)

It's a matter of taste... Still is a shame not having any tracks from Oxy 7-13 and Chronologie on the Essentials...

[Pat Gleeson]

Personally I love the Rarities collection. It's great to finally have the bootlegged to death music officially at last. The Essentials disc is a compilation, and as is the way with these things is a compromise - not really there to please the fans. I like the edits of Calypso and Industrial Revolution 2, I have those tracks anyway, so edits don't bother me. Zoolook finally sounds as good as the vinyl version all those years ago, and Arpegaitor sounds fantastic. The ideal compromise would have been to include 7" or 12" mixes of the popular tracks for the fans and those would serve the casual buyer also. JMJ had other ideas on what to allow FDM to release methinks, and I assume any further releases from the vaults would happen through another label.
If and when JMJ regains the rights to his catalogue or he gets a new deal*

*Record company, online distribution, streaming whatever.

[Analog-Umph]

Arpegaitor sounds fantastic

The way they cut that drone off at the end really ruined it for me.

I live for that Taurus drone!

[Pat Gleeson]

There's always the Concerts In China CD - BTW I love that drone as well. As I said, it's a compilation.

[Jon]

The Essentials disc is good, for the purpose it was made - in HD transfer. But the editing is terrible. Like not much thought was given.

The boxset was a missed oppourtunity. The Rarities disc is the selling point. But, again, we could have had more in the way of rarities. Infact, that set could have worked better if the rarities were on the two dics. Even another disc could have been fitted into that box.

[Dv_]

Essentials & Rarities is #92 this week on french albums chart.

[shadow]

It's just a compilation disc, nothing special... No reason for it to be any higher in my opinion...

[Velodynamic]

There's always the Concerts In China CD - BTW I love that drone as well. As I said, it's a compilation.

But they killed the Moog Taurus part just like that.

[Kanta]

[scroll]Arpegiateur[/scroll]

[Phil J.]

Same here. Honestly, I can't see what all the fuss is about.

What did you expect?

I expected nothing more or less than what we got. I just can't see why this thread has reached 52 pages. If it had been a new album I could understand it, but a glorified compilation?

For some time now I've been drifting away from JMJ. His music no longer holds the appeal it once did. So, perhaps it's time for me to bow out gracefully.

[La Cage]

For some time now I've been drifting away from JMJ. His music no longer holds the appeal it once did. So, perhaps it's time for me to bow out gracefully.

You can always send all your CDs/DVDs/vinyl records to me if you want

[Goudeskitchen]

A very amateur job (but then again it is Dreyfus!), you can tell from the back! They translate Les Granges Brûlées into English but then don't bother with Arpegiateur and also with Magnetic Fields (translating into French). Why bother with the English translation anyway seeing as the originals were never translated?

Call me pedantic but the translation issues really annoy me - it's like on AERO when Zoolookologie became Zoolookology! But, at least they're separated on my iPod that way!

I just hope that this 'new' album is worth the wait (but it sounds like he's doing all the concerts so that he promotes people back to his music so they'll buy his new album to get a decent chart release but at the current progress I'm afraid that'll never happen)!

Anyway, rant over!

[Jon]

As soon as I read the track listing for this boxset I was disappointed. OK, so there are the couple of gems on the Rarities disc, but what sells that boxset is the packaging. But what a lot of money for some packaging. If I didn't know better, they new the CD contents were pretty thin, so they pulled the stops out on the packaging. The Essentials disc is a waste of time. The Rarities disc is like something knocked up in a hurry without much thought. I personally still believe the Vitalic remixes are lame and do NOT fit onto the rarities disc. They were already released in one format, why release them again and so soon. This boxset could have been far FAR better and the fans know it. But, hey, many will part with money to get the odd here and there track and view Jarre's flagging career through rose tinted specs. Damn, I parted with money to buy this boxset just to add it to my collection. I gave it one spin, that was it. Back onto the shelf.

We all know that JMJ has not done anything decent in the past decade. And thats one hell of a long time to not do anything good - and damaging.

I will have to agree wholeheartedly with Adam. Either my musical tastes are changing, or JMJ now longer holds my attention other than his early works. I really do hope that this so-called new album he says he is working on will make amends. Oh boy, do we need something! What a shame all these tours are getting in the way. And NO, JMJ doesn't need to perform concerts to sell his material. His back catalogue is vertually non-existant so he doesn't really have anything to sell. And what is publicity for? The right publicity is the selling tool.

Thats my rant over