BEAUBOURG

With all my respect to those who like this peculiar release by Vangelis, I must admit that I'm having a hard time even taking this seriously as a piece of music, progressive or otherwise. For the first time I have now been sitting trough the whole album in order to produce this review and I can honestly tell you that this is something I will never do again. And I would advise anyone against it! Before I start I should say that I really hope that no one finds my views offensive. That is certainly not my intention, anyway. Also, I should say that I have respect for Vangelis and I do enjoy some of his other works.

I will try to be as respectful as I can regarding this album and start by saying that it is radically different from Vangelis earlier (and later) works. I have not heard all of his albums, (indeed, far from it), but to my knowledge he never did anything like this before or since. The sounds all come from synthesisers, which is not so unusual given the artist involved. But there appear to be no rhythms and also no melodies; indeed no kind of structure whatsoever! The sounds appear to be almost totally random. Some cheesy Pop music can make me cringe, but at least I understand the artist's musical purpose behind it. Not so with Beaubourg. I therefore hesitate to even call this music at all, as opposed to mere sound experiments. And needless to say, this is highly experimental stuff.

It does appear as if Vangelis improvised the entire thing with no attempt whatsoever to actually compose anything; just trying out different electronic sounds, some of which are quite painful to the ears! If you have detected a hidden structure and revealed the underlying beauty of Beaubourg I must say lucky for you. Enjoy! But to the rest, I must issue a strong warning: this is the most pointless synthesiser meanderings I have ever encountered and it is also one of the worst overall audio-experiences that I have ever had. Well, coming from a CD, anyway. As opposed to a piece of chalk on a blackboard, for example!

Rating this with one star actually feels like an insult to most of the other albums that I have given that rating. This makes me wish there had been a zero star rating!

Avoid, by all means!

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