Oxygene

Oxygene was released in 1976 on Disques Dreyfus, licensed to Polydor. Jarre recorded the album in his home using a variety of analog synthesizers and other electronic instruments and effects. It became a bestseller and a highly influential development in electronic music, and has been described as the album that "led the synthesizer revolution of the Seventies."

Prior to 1976, Jarre had dabbled in a number of projects, including an unsuccessful synth album, advertising jingles and compositions for a ballet. His inspiration for Oxygène came from a painting by the artist Michel Granger that was given to him by his future wife Charlotte Rampling. The Painting showed the Earth peeling to reveal a skull and 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'".

He 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 sceptical of electronic music, he gambled by pressing a run of 50,000 copies. The album went on to sell 15 million copies.

 

The track Oxygène (Part II) was used in the Australian film Gallipoli to accompany the crucial running sequences.

The track Oxygène (Part II) (the fugue part beginning from 1:36) was used as a (alternative) title theme for the British SciFi TV Series Space: 1999 in the German dubbed version as shown by the ZDF during the early 80s.

Oxygène (Part II) was used in the advert for the Citroen C5 in 2001.

Oxygène (Part IV) features in the game Grand Theft Auto IV on an in-game radio station, The Journey.

Oxygène (Part IV) also appears in UK comedy series Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge's second episode as magician Tony LeMesmer (David Schneider) performs a magic trick on Alan's show.

Segments of the album Oxygene can be heard in many amusement arcades across the United Kingdom (notably in "Elaut" machines)

Oxygène (part II) also appears in Jackie Chan's famous movie Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. We can hear it while main character is training snake style.

Parts of the album were used as incidental music for the original radio version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Key components of Jarre's sound included his use of the Electroharmonix Small Stone phaser on synthetic string pads provided by the Dutch-built Eminent-310 Unique organ, and liberal use of echo on various sound effects generated by the VCS 3 and EMS Synthi AKS synthesizers.

The album reached #2 in the UK charts and #78 in the US charts