A History of Electronic Music: Parts 10a & 10b
Jan 12th, 2010 by Donagh
Damn! This is very bad news. It’s electronic music’s Hall of Shame. The latest installment of the fine podcast series A History of Electronic Music is a two-parter - on Vangelis and, I can bearly write this, Jean Michel Jarre.
I put this up here for completeness, as I have linked to the other parts of this History of Electronic Music. This post provides links to all the others in the series.
It’s in two parts because this kind of ‘progressive’ music does go on for a bit, well beyond the patience of most normal people. Music to watch tumbleweeds roll by while stuck some where off the shoulders of Orion.
A history of electronic music part 10a: Play Now | Play in Popup A history of electronic music part 10b: Play Now | Play in Popup
Jean Michel Jarre…. I suppose everything France gave to humanity couldn’t be useful… wouldn’t have been fair.
Anyhow, thought of you & your occasional posts on this Electronic music series when I saw this on that nifty French music blog Blogotheque recently - it’s that some kind soul has put up on YouTube a BBC 4 documentary ‘Synth Brittannica’ about use of synths in Brit music from the mid 70s on :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n93c4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeVRYPjcVXg
Thanks Seán. To be honest with ye, I generally can’t stand synth-pop (although hopefully that allows me to pick and choose - early New Order good - all Depeche Mode bad etc) which is why I didn’t check the program out at the time.
I can’t really watch it meself - as it’s coming through too slow.
Doesn’t seem that New Order are the only decent lot in it though.
Seems to start out with the Sheffield scene (Cabaret Voltaire / early Human League) which is definitely good. Then there’s the likes of Gary Numan and Soft Cell who had their moments.. Some of the acts mentioned would tend to give me the creeps alright..
My supervisor in a supermarket job I worked in years back, when I deplored to him the awful stuff that got piped over the supermarket PA (tinny versions of The Candyman Can and I Write The Songs, among others) claimed to be the proud possessor of a collector’s edition of a Jean Michel Jarre record made especially for playing in supermarkets. I thought he was talking hallucinatory nonsense, and indeed he was, in so far as he could not have owned the original record http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_Supermarkets but I now regret expressing such disdainful disbelief in the contents of his bootleg collection.
Oh ye of little faith ! (had to fix your link btw - as a pesky comma was standing between us and enlightenment about this one-off vinyl wonder…)
“Piratez Moi!” he taunted from the safety of a radio studio, knowing that no one would be able to stick the pointy end of a rapier in his gizzard.
My attitude towards Jean Michel Jarre hardened when my sister boasted that she bought tickets to go see him in the Docklands show. It’s easy to ignore these people, as what they produce kind of occurs in a parrallel universe and outside of lifts you can manage to avoid their music completely. But when it comes to taking family it get personal.