Jean Michel Jarre’s New Album: A Time Machine To Infinite Boredom

Electronica

I shouldn’t be writing this blog entry.

Every marketing expert tells you that you should have a clear positioning, and obviously my blog is very focused on Jazz and Classical music, where I hope I know more or less what I’m talking about.

In Electronica, I clearly don’t. I use Qobuz plus the free wifi connection at my gym to stream the latest electronic releases during my workout, but beyond that I really don’t have a clue.

So take what you read below with a grain of salt.

Jean-Michel Jarre

My disclaimer above wasn’t true 20 years ago. Back in high-school, together with a good friend of mine, we actually had a small home recording studio with about 7 synthesizers, run by a Commodore Amiga, a small mixing console, and a regular cassette recorder.

We were dabbling in our own little production of electronica, heavily inspired by stuff like the soundtrack to Le Grand Bleu/The Big Blue by Eric Serra, some Tangerine Dream and Vangelis-type stuff, but our real hero was Jean-Michel Jarre.

To this day, I consider Oxygène and Equinoxe great classics, and go back to them every once in a while.

Electronica 1: The Time Machine

So when I saw a new album released from him on Qobuz, I had to stream it immediately.

And then I read about who he was collaborating on this new album, his first for many many years: Air, Moby, Pete Townshend, Massive Attack, Vince Clarke (Erasure), Tangerine Dream, etc. etc. Holy cow. This had to be good, right?

So what happened?

I listened to this entire album twice, and really had to force myself for the second time. I’m sorry, but this entire album is just plain boring. Not a single track on there that I ever want to listen to again.

And really, I can forgive quite a lot of things, obviously this is no Beethoven and I don’t expect this from a contemporary pop album (this is more pop then electronica to my ears). But boredom is unforgivable.

I’m not going to give this a formal star rating as I don’t see this as a proper review, but just wanted to put out a word of warning: don’t buy this album blindly, you may regret it.

Below the official trailer to make up your own mind.

And please feel free to contradict me!

Author: Musicophile

I'm not a professional musician, I don't work in the music industry, I'm just what the name says, somebody who loves music. I've been in love with music for all of my life, took piano lessons for nearly 10 years, and played in several amateur Jazz groups. I go to concerts, both classical and Jazz, quite regularly. And I collect music previously on vinyl and CDs, now on my computer, and am slightly OCD on my music collection. You can reach me at Musicophile1(AT)gmail.com View all posts by Musicophile