Quote:
Originally Posted by MicShazam
So far, my impression is that he's got some cool sounds, but that the music also seems to have been outrun by so many of the electronic artists that have followed him.
Hearing his music, I see how his influence has no doubt hit wide and deep. And there's some surprising compositions here and there. I'm gonna need to listen to more, but "weak new age", as Windsock put it, is a little too fitting at times.
As for your comment, Rostasi, I haven't personally listened much to Oldfield albums older than the mid 80's, so I don't know what I'd think about later material. But I do really like Crises, Five Miles Out and Discovery.
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I think
Jarre has a lot of his father's work in his mind and I think
"electronic orchestration" may be a result of that. It was a
bit forward
thinking for the time because it raised the bar on popular electronic music by
not being either a parroting of classical instruments (which was a big thing in
the 60s) or the mostly minor key freak-outs of European space-rock performers
of the years just preceding the success of
Oxygene. It was a kind of safely
textured sound that could resonate with folks who'd not usually listen to such music.
I can understand you coming from the opposite direction with
Oldfield -
and those three albums you mentioned are not bad. He had a major mental
crises {pun} tho after the success of his first album(s) (and the introduction
to the world of "
Virgin Records") and, I think, tried to overcome it by putting
out other versions of it that just made him look sad (except for the early one
that
David Bedford arranged). To me, his music works best when he does his
long-form highly integrated pieces, but he appears to occasionally think that he's
a songster when he's often not. If he had never done anything else, the first
three albums would stand as a mighty trilogy and
Amarok - done 15 years later -
could join that as a fourth solid recording in the style that he's best at doing.
Also, remember that "weak new age" is looking at things in the rear-view
mirror as "new age music," as a style, didn't exist at this time. If he could keep
from looking like a guy in his mid-60s trying for a PBS audience, he could resurrect
a large ensemble of young folks willing to take on these extended works of his -
almost like the way that
Terry Riley is being "rediscovered."