If you’re aged 50 or over and have a love of synths / synthesis, then you’ll understand how Oxygene is a seminal moment in the history of electronic music. It transformed my life when I first heard it, as it has many other people.
That said, I must have been living under a rock when Jarre re-recorded Oxygene live in 2006 to coincide with the album’s 30th anniversary of its release in December 1976. I was totally unaware of this until today, and just watched the whole shebang today.
If like me you haven’t seen this, it’s more than worth a watch to see the level of complexity involved in faithfully recreating the whole album using the original synthesisers. For the past 40 years I’d assumed the iconic lead part in Oxygene Part 2 was a pre-programmed sequence – how wrong I was.
Enjoy: