Revolutions - Jean Michel Jarre

...long career.

Revolutions was his 'British' album in asmuch as it took inspiration from his feelings and thoughts on the history of the UK and was was also the source material of his somewhat challanging but utlimately awesome London Docklands concerts.

These concerts were staged in the at the time virtually deserted remains of London's once busy docklands but at the last minute were pulled due to red tape regarding crowd ...
...water'. Bless.

Revolutions is based partly around the Industrial Revolution and how it changed the face of the modern world as well as feelings on the modern state of London and it's relationship with the world. The tracks are as follows:

1.: Industrial Revolution (overture) This starts with a metallic rythym built up from samples to give the impression of hammers working metal and progresses with string synths and more ... more

Jarre, most famous for his classic Oxygene album and lavish concerts has produced a good number of albums of varying style and sometimes quality over his long career.

Revolutions was his 'British' album in asmuch as it took inspiration from his feelings and thoughts on the history of the UK and was was also the source material of his somewhat challanging but utlimately awesome London Docklands concerts.

These concerts were staged in the at the time virtually deserted remains of London's once busy docklands but at the last minute were pulled due to red tape regarding crowd safety but when finally staged in October were held under steady cold rainfall. Despite this, they were truly wonderful concerts with fantastic light effects, more fireworks than I've ever seen before or since and some very talented musicians. As he joked on the night 'we frogs like water'. Bless.

Revolutions is based partly around the Industrial Revolution and how it changed the face of the modern world as well as feelings on the modern state of London and it's relationship with the world. The tracks are as follows:

1.: Industrial Revolution (overture) This starts with a metallic rythym built up from samples to give the impression of hammers working metal and progresses with string synths and more short staccato beats, pretty much living up to it's overture subtitle. The second part of the song lacks the metallic elements but it more upbeat and sounds like the sort of jolly classical music soundtrack you might get to a 1950's documentry about good old British Industry. The finale slow things down again with vocal samples more reminiscent of Russian 'work hard comrade' type music from the early 20th Century.

2.: Industrial Revolution (part 1) - See above

3.: Industrial Revolution (part 2) - See above

4.: Industrial Revolution (part 3) - See above.

5.: London Kid. A fairly basic synth drum and pads backing with Hank Marvin(!) or Honk as Jean-Michel Jarre pronounces it, playing a typical Shadows type number over the top. Hit the next track button. Amazingly, this was a single.

6.: Revolution. A superb high energy track infused with eastern, & Turkish/North African type sounds and rythyms. It starts with a mournful wailing wind instrument before the main beats starts and a vocoder processed voice says 'Revolution'. One of the earlier Jarre tracks with lyrics. I wouldn't say the lyrics make much sense though - 'Change/No Change, Freedom/No Freedom'. More samples of ethnic sounds and wailing vocals make this a high-tech soundtrack to an eastern market.

7.: Tokyo Kid. A Slow wandering lead line with Japanese sounding noises and tones over a somewhat more choppy drum/rythym track. Not bad, a good background track but not one you'd really want to listen to with rapt attention.

8.: Computer Weekend. Most Jarre albums have at least one track with some seriously retro sounds and this one seems to have a circa 1978 drum machine doing the honours with various almost analogue type sounds (although this is firmly in Jarre's digital period - his love affair with retro analogue came much later). Like Tokyo Kid i.e. not bad, not great.

9.: September. A tribute to African apartheid-fighter Dulcie September but you wouldn't really know it. A fairly laid back track which sounds like it's trying to be a bit African but failing badly. The 'words' just seem to be 'nya, nya, nya. nya' with a bit of Floyd/Dark Side of the Moon style wailings over the latter half. Some cite this as his worst ever track but it's not that bad. Better than tracks 7 & 8 in my opinion.

10.: Emigrant. Starts with a short rework of the Revolution theme from the first few tracks before moving on to some Tomita like warbling pad sounds and military snare drum rolls. It worked well live but on the CD is a bit lifeless.

This is a difficult album to be totally objective about as seeing it live was very different to the CD experience. The light show, atmosphere and fireworks made it seem a glorious and coherent album but in hindsite, after the initial 4 tracks, it loses its way badly, seems to have very little to do with the underlying theme and has at least two tracks with Jarre apparantly writing on automatic with very little life in the tracks.

Worth buying for Industrial Revolution 1-4 and Revolutions but the rest is frankly filler and rather a let down. The inlay is a pretty weak thing too with just the basic info in a single folded sheet.

 

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