BlahBlahCafe - Jean-Michel Jarre forum

probably 12 dreams

150.000 @12DOTS

Big time wrote:80.000 people at the Merzouga concert?? I think not! More like 8.000....

Or was he talking about 12 dreams...?

It was in fact quite crowded there... I think they earlier mentioned an attendance of 40.000, but then again I don't know any official figures.

Swedish newspaper Expressen

One out of five.

4 out of 5 stars (Hit potential: 3 out of 5):

http://www.djz.dk/musik/pladeanmeldelser/4341/

What opinions do they write??

The music is not very good but that the people at Ibiza and La Défense probalby will love it.

Sorry, I just realized that it's only a review of the single. But in short he says that Jarre is back in great form.

a French review. Maybe our French members can give short translations,

http://www.gutsofdarkness.com/god/objet.php?objet=9527

"Une basse feutrée galope en mouvement circulaire, sur un rythme techno soft. L’ambiance est ‘’dance floor’’, rose bonbon pour ados boutonneux qui s’exclament sur un synthé qui parle et des effets sonores qu’ils jugent écoeurants, à faire baver Joséphine. Et lorsque le synthé prend sa voix monocoque de cacanne qui se transvide, les jeunes gonzesses de …11 ans crient au génie!!! Eh oui, vous venez de mettre les pieds, les oreilles je devrais dire, sur le dernier cru de la musique électro, à la rose fifille bonbon, le Pop Corn des années 2000; Teo & Tea de Jean Michel Jarre. Album thématique, qui est sensé représenté 24 heures dans la vie de Teo & Tea, Jarre se paye la fête avec un album explosif, ultra dynamique sur des beats d’enfer. C’est aussi un ramassis de bruits, d’effets sonores et d’échantillonnage sur des segments de musique très désorganisés et froids. Un job de DJ quoi, où des voix humaines s’entremêlent aux vocables assistées par ordinateur, un truc que Kraftwerk a si brillamment développée et qui démontre une réelle carence en composition, en imagination et en évolution. Du rythme, du tempo c’est plaisant mais il faut savoir en faire un bon dosage. Ici, Jean Michel Jarre est comme un gosse dans une boîte à son. Il y a une ambiance de vide dans un tintamarre programmé qui n’a pas d’âmes. Ça sent le vulgaire plagiat de DJ. Prisonnier de son image de mégastar, cet usurpateur d’identité -car il se prend vraiment pour le père de la techno- est en panne sèche sur son évolution et démontre une carence évidente en composition. Teo & Tea est un album qui est bourré d’artifices sonores, laissant sous entendre que le mec est génial alors qu’il est foutrement dépassé par Air et Daft Punk, encore Death in Vegas. Il tente de rajeunir son produit en y incorporant des riffs solides et des passages hard techno digne de Prodigy et Front Line Assembly. Les collages manquent d’originalité. Lui qui pourtant avait développé tout un art, notamment avec Zoolook nous bourre de samplers pas originaux pour 5 sous et tape à l’oreille, comme Beautiful Agony et ses tentatives d’éveils à la sexualité pour ados rêveurs. Bref, de la cire d’intestin. Touch to Remember est sans doute la plus intéressante avec un tempo lancinant et une surexploitation des grosses strates symphoniques, mais trop c’est comme pas assez et on se tanne vite de cette couverture métal bonbon. Bref une autre ineptie de Jarre qui les accumule depuis qu’il a entrepris sa quête de personnage extra terrestre avec une musique rendue aussi banale et vide d’essence (de sens) que ses vastes concerts. Évidemment, il y a de bons moments, comme sur Touch to Remember et son overdose de strates violonnées. Ainsi que Partners in Crime 1 et Melancholic Rodeo. Teo & Tea va sans doute plaire à la nouvelle génération qui suit Jarre depuis Chronologie, en 1993. Une autre preuve de la périclitation du personnage. Mais, peut-être que Jarre a tout simplement tourné la page à l’intelligence, ou bien cette dernière l’a laissée tomber, pour essayer de vendre son personnage de grand guignol aux instruments et aux sons bizarres à un public plus jeune, moins avisé. Car je sens que Jarre va s’éclater et que derrière ce terrible navet, poussera des ‘’raves’’ étonnants. Disponible en version CD/DVD à partir de 26 Mars prochain."


Note : 2 points of 6

i read Hungarian forums too, the opinions are a mixture. Good ones and bad ones.
Someone feels the album is without fantasy, the other likes it!

The mind of a reviewer is the same as artists, quality etc. can be hard to define. Those people can be those people who give Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears 5/5.

I never listen to Journalists Views Anyway.... you either like it or not,no reviewer would ever persuade me to buy anything on the premise of them liking or Hating an Album,nor would a Bad or good review change my perception of something..I'm capable of making a decision myself..

Half the time the Reviews are done by people who more than likely only ever Heard of Jarre yesterday when they were given a CD on there desk to listen to and then write some views on it!!!

In any case I've never seen a reviewer,blatantly come out and say ,"Yes its great",they tend to give facist views on how downhill he's become or trying to keep up with the young techno boys,or that Bloke who wrote Oxygene...

There so predictable

Equinoxe wrote:I never listen to Journalists Views Anyway....

Me neither, though their reviews can sometimes be fun to read!!

This morning I read an interview with Jean Michel in my local newspaper. The interview is in Dutch but I have tried to translate the text in decend English. So perhaps there are some strange sentences in it but I am sure it is more readable than babelfish

Click here to read the original Dutch article

Enough of electronic bombast

By Harry de Jong

Friday 6th of April 2007 – The French synthesizer virtuoso Jean Michel Jarre may be almost 60 years, he keeps up with his time. With his new album Téo & Téa he has made a surprisingly modern album full of trendy dancebeats



But the music has some depth; in the thirteen electronic tracks full of unexpected sound effects Jarre tells the story of a boy and a girl in search of true love.

"You cannot compare Téo & Téa with none of my previous albums”, says Jarre. "This all has to do with the fact that it was not easy the last few years. Privately it went wrong and there were also troubles with my record company. Because of that I resigned myself with my computers to search new ways. Eventually I discovered I wanted to work once again with simple things. No synthesizer fuzz but real keyboards. At home I arranged 3 keyboards in a row and with them I made fifty demo’s. From those I eventually distilled the thirteen songs for Téo and Téa."

"During the making of the tracks I was guided by the search of every human for a partner. That still is the essence of life: no one wants to be alone. Everyone wants to have somebody to share his or her emotions. It seems people gets lonelier and lonelier. Look at the internet for example where people are desperate in search of a partner. We have more means of communication than ever but they are not bringing people closer to each other. That is the message of Téo and Téa

It is obvious Jarre looks for simplicity. After his international breakthrough in 1977 with the Oxygène album his studio projects and his concerts became more and more ambitious. The sound artist travelled the world with wagonloads of electronic devices. At the end of the seventies Jarre was admitted in The Guinness Book Of Records because 1 million people attended his concert at Place de la Concorde. In 1990 2 million people attended another concert. Also renowned are his mega concerts in China

"In all those years I never made an album or did a tour without the conviction I had to tell something new. I always tried not to repeat myself. But eventually I discovered I was busy hiding myself behind my music machinery. I now want everyone to see the person behind Jean Michel Jarre."

Before he became one of the worlds’ greatest electronic sound wizards Jean Michel Jarre was a singer in a rock band. "But I was not born to be a singer. Via music pioneer Pierre Schaeffer I discovered the World of the electronic sound collages. By the way I never expected ever to become so successful. Record company Polydor was not fond of all that instrumental hustle. It was the Dutch department that decided to take the gamble and to release the album worldwide. The outcome is known.."

"I was doing something then for which no market was in place. I considered making music like cooking. I mixed the sounds in the studio like ingredients of a meal, with surprising results. Next step was to take all of that to the stage but I realized I had to come with a special concept. Because if you want to captivate people with only computers and synthesizers you have to stage a visual spectacle."

"My shows are technical masterpieces, but I myself am not technical. I have two left hands and always had people who could accomplish exactly what I wanted. That has been my luck because I am nothing more than a pianist who cannot tune his own instruments.”

'I owe my success to the Dutch department of record company Polydor”

Fantastic interview!!!

Have not seen/heard him like that before!!!

That interview says a lot!!!


Thanks for sharing and translating!!!