Oxygène

Oxygène
File:Oxygene album cover.jpg
Studio album by Jean Michel Jarre
Released	5 December 1976
Recorded	August–November 1976, Paris
Genre	Electronica, new-age, ambient, pop, chill-out
Length	39:44
Label	Disques Dreyfus/Polydor
Producer	Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre chronology
Les Granges Brûlées (1973)Les Granges Brûlées1973 Oxygène (1976) Équinoxe (1978)Équinoxe1978
Singles from Oxygène
"Oxygène Part IV" Released: 8 August 1977 (UK) "Oxygène Part II" Released: 1977 (France)

Oxygène (English: Oxygen) is an album of instrumental electronic music composed, produced, and performed by the French composer Jean Michel Jarre. It was first released in France in December 1976, on Disques Dreyfus with license to Polydor. The album's international release was in summer 1977. Jarre recorded the album in his home using a variety of analog synthesizers and other electronic instruments and effects. It became a bestseller and was Jarre's first album to achieve mainstream success. It was also highly influential in the development of electronic music and has been described as the album that "led the synthesizer revolution of the Seventies".

Background

Prior to 1976, Jarre had dabbled in a number of projects, including an unsuccessful synthesizer music album, advertising jingles and compositions for a ballet. His inspiration for Oxygène came from a painting by the artist Michel Granger (given to Jarre by his future wife Charlotte Rampling), which showed the Earth peeling to reveal a skull. Jarre obtained the artist's permission to use the image for this album.

Jarre composed Oxygène over a period of eight months using a number of analogue synthesizers and an eight-track recorder set up in the kitchen of his apartment. However, he found it difficult to get the record released, not least because it had "No singers, no proper [track] titles, just 'I', 'II', 'III', 'IV', 'V' and 'VI'".

The motif of the track "Oxygène Part IV" is a variation on a phrase from "Popcorn" by Gershon Kingsley, which Jarre himself had previously covered under the pseudonyms of "The Popcorn Orchestra" and "Jamie Jefferson".

Jarre eventually found a publisher, Francis Dreyfus, head of Disques Motors (now Disques Dreyfus). Dreyfus was the husband of one of Jarre's fellow-pupils at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales of Pierre Schaeffer, where Jarre had learned to use synthesizers, including the EMS VCS 3, which was to play a major part in the music of Oxygène. Although Dreyfus was initially skeptical about electronic music, he gambled by pressing a run of 50,000 copies. The album went on to sell 15 million copies.

"Oxygène IV"

Possibly the most recognised track of Jarre's is Oxygène IV

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In 1997, Jarre produced a sequel album called Oxygène 7–13. This refers to the original album as being the first six movements from a larger complete piece of work, despite the time difference between the release of the two albums. It was written in the same style and using some of the same instruments, although the work is much more up-tempo. Jarre was clear about not trying to copy the mood or atmosphere from the original album, but using the same work approach to "create a mood later".

In 2007, Jarre produced a new version of the album, recorded live on a stage, but with no audience, for a DVD release that included 3D video. The title of the new DVD CD set is Oxygène: Live in Your Living Room, with the enhanced CD being called Oxygène: New Master Recording. He used the same instruments, but performed the work with three other collaborators (Dominique Perrier, Francis Rimbert and Claude Samard), rather than overdubbing all parts himself.

The album

Oxygène consists of six tracks, numbered simply "Oxygène Part I" to "Part VI". Its sound has been described as "an infectious combination of bouncy, bubbling analog sequences and memorable hook lines". The album reached #1 in French charts, #2 in the UK charts and #78 in the US charts.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Melody Maker	average
Music Week	unfavourable
NME	unfavourable

Reaction to the album upon its release in the UK in July 1977 was largely negative: the British music press, more interested in the developing UK punk scene, was oriented towards guitar-based music and hostile to most electronic music. The NME derided Oxygène as "just another interminable cosmic cruise. The German spacers (Dream, Schulze et al) mapped this part of the electronic galaxy aeons ago... The album's [...] infuriatingly derivative. Explore its prime influences instead." Likening the album to a French version of Mike Oldfield's work, Music Week said: "Unfortunately Jarre has produced a work that is ponderous in its self-conscious musicality – he definitely wears his art on his sleeve. Unlike Oldfield he never stands back and laughs at his own creation. It is heavy throughout, and his influences continually jog the elbow – particularly the lugubrious touches of Mahler and the almost continuous Bach underpinning... some interest will be generated but the album is not really suited to our insular and musically anti-intellectual Anglo-Saxon island." Melody Maker was kinder towards the album, saying: "The first time I heard this album I hated it. It seemed so bland, so undemanding, so uneventful... I've got to admit it repays further listening, and that it is not quite the electronic Muzak I had written it off as initially." The review noted that the album was composed in the same manner as classical music, rather than rock music, and concluded: "On the other hand, Oxygène is not classical music. Though the track the discos are playing [referring to "Oxygène Part IV"] is, as you might expect, actually its least effective section musically, it has the same relationship to popular music as Tangerine Dream, say, or Oldfield. Personally, it still does not impress me as much as either, except at a technical level. It seems to lack heart, the sense of passionate involvement in the act of music-making which makes Edgar Froese's work almost a musical equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting. It is almost too accomplished, too formally precise." Recent reviews such as AllMusic's Jim Brenholts have given the album top ratings, calling it, "one of the original e-music albums." and that, "it has withstood the test of time and the evolution of digital electronica."

Track listing

All tracks composed by Jean Michel Jarre.

1. "Oxygène Part I" – 7:40
2. "Oxygène Part II" – 7:37
3. "Oxygène Part III" – 3:24
4. "Oxygène Part IV" – 4:06
5. "Oxygène Part V" – 10:26
6. "Oxygène Part VI" – 6:24

Personnel

• Jean Michel Jarre – ARP 2600, EMS Synthi AKS, EMS VCS3, RMI Harmonic Synthesizer, Farfisa Professional Organ, Eminent 310U, Mellotron and the Rhythmin' Computer (later revealed to be a Korg Minipops-7 rhythm machine)

Production

• Produced by Jean Michel Jarre
• Engineered and mixed by Jean-Pierre Janiaud; assistant engineer: Patrick Foulon
• Mastered by Translab

Cover versions

• Hank Marvin covered "Oxygène (Part IV)" on his 1993 album Heartbeat.
• Hipnosis covered "Oxygène (Part IV)" on their 1983 single Oxigene (also known as Disco Mix).
• Vocal recording of "Oxygene (Part II)", was released in 2000, by Serbian rapper Gru, with lyrics "Samo seks Srbina spasava".
• The song Eple (2001) by Norwegian electronica duo Röyksopp samples the intro of "Oxygène (Part V)".
• DJs John 00 Fleming and The Digital Blonde covered "Oxygène (Part IV)" as a trance single in 2009. This version has received acclaim from Jarre himself.

In popular culture

"Oxygène Part II" was used in the original Chinese version of Jackie Chan's 1978 film Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (蛇形刁手) and Peter Weir's 1981 film Gallipoli. "Oxygène Part IV" was used in the closing scene of BBC Drama's Micro Men, a one-off docu-drama about the rise of the British home computer market. Segments of "Oxygene" were used as background music in the third and sixth fits of The first radio series of The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "Oxygène Part IV" was used in Grand Theft Auto IV, part of radio channel The Journey. "Oxygene Part IV" was also used in many arcade grabbers distributed by Elaut, using a short clip of the 'chorus' that is played at random intervals while the machine is active.

Charts and certifications

Peak positions

Chart (1977)	Peak position
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)	29
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)	10
French Albums (SNEP)	1
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)	8
Dutch Albums (MegaCharts)	4
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)	3
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)	9
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)	3
UK Albums (OCC)	2
US (Billboard 200)	78

Certifications

Region	Certification	Sales/shipments
France (SNEP)	Gold	100,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	Platinum	300,000
^shipments figures based on certification alone

Release history

Region	Date	Label	Format	Catalog
France	5 December 1976	Disques Motors/Polydor	LP	2933 207
			cassette	3222 215
Europe	1977	Polydor	LP	2344 068
			cassette	3100 398
United Kingdom	July 1977		LP	2310 555
			cassette	3100 398
Germany	1983		CD	800 015-2
France	1985	Les Disques Motors	LP	MLP 1000
			CD	MCO 1000
United States	1994	Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab	remastered LP	MFSL 1-212
			remastered CD	UDCD 613
Europe	1997	Disques Dreyfus/Epic	remastered CD	487375 2
			cassette	487375 4
			MiniDisc	487375 8
United Kingdom	15 March 1999	Simply Vinyl	180 gram vinyl LP	SVLP 072
Europe	25 April 2014	Disques Dreyfus/BMG/Sony Music	remastered CD	88843024682

External links

• Oxygène at Discogs
• Oxygène and Oxygène: New Master Recording at JarreUK