Jarre: Progressive Electronic or Prog Related?

I|I|I|I|I wrote: Ricochet wrote: I|I|I|I|I wrote: Edit: Also, it appears a lot of you have a different concept of "pop" than I do. Apparently, your defition of "pop" is that the music is simple and easy. How absolutely incorrect is that! There is plenty of pop music that isn't necessarily sweet nor easy, and there is plenty of non-pop music that is sweet and easy. The correct definition of "pop" music is that it is "popular"... and even by that definition, many bands like Pink Floyd could be considered pop and yet we most definitely know they are progressive. let's try more profoundness into definitions. Pink Floyd made it out to a massive audience, but does that really resemble the "popular", fully, of it? Even more, how can the relation between Jarre and Floyd be possible, even in popular terms. I agree with some prog over at Jarre, put Floyd valences are indeed to high to think of, for Jarre. I think there are many similarities between Jarre and Floyd - not in style, of course, but in success of the musicians and their approach to music. Again, Floyd took a very "easy", sweet approach to music... as does Jarre... Floyd also reached a large audience, a large percentage of which that was the only "progressive" music they listened too... same thing with Jarre... Floyd was also quite experimental, despite their accessibility... same thing with Jarre. The similarity is that they are both progressive artists that were simply more accessible than other progressive artists. Many people think that BECAUSE Jarre was accessible, he wasn't prog. But I think he was simply accessible IN ADDITION to being prog.

nope, at least until the last years...

I also don't absolutely agree on Jarre experimenting much...perhaps in solid specific examples, but overall Zoolook was his most abstract thing and that's all.

again, for the n time, I'll say that accesability doesn't match progressiveness. yes.

I'll stop at answering with no, it's already a long discussion.

sorry


Edited by Ricochet - November 08 2006 at 16:11

I don't see why he should be considered prog at all. He made some innovative and interesting music on keyboards at the end of the day, thats about it.

Paradox wrote: I don't see why he should be considered prog at all. He made some innovative and interesting music on keyboards at the end of the day, thats about it.

hmmm...

curious as to how you would define 'prog' 

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: micky wrote: Paradox wrote: I don't see why he should be considered prog at all. He made some innovative and interesting music on keyboards at the end of the day, thats about it. hmmm... curious as to how you would define 'prog'    Curious and innovative does not necesarilly means Prog, REM was curious and innovative, U2 were curious and innovative at least in Joshua´s Tree, even Fleetwood Mac with Nicks and Buckingham were absolutely innovative to the style of POP being done in the mid 70´s.   But none of them is remotely Prog.   Iván

you've seen my definition of prog.. and it didn't include  either of those words.  I was curioius as to what Paradox thought...


Edited by micky - November 09 2006 at 14:57

I|I|I|I|I wrote: Certif1ed wrote: I|I|I|I|I wrote: ...I gaurantee you, we can leave the poll up, but the ratio of opinions will be about the same: 75% for progressive electronic and 25% for prog-related. It probably won't even journey outside of a 33%-66% ratio. As I write, it's almost 50-50 - 12:5   Sorry, 50-50 would be a 1:1 ratio, or 12:12. 12:5, even when rounded 12:6, is a 3:2 ratio or 66%-33%.So even as it stands now, we still have the ratios I predicted.

Oh come on, you're talking gibberish - 12:6 is 2:1.

And it's currently 14:7

Ricochet wrote: I'm afraid I don't appreciate Tomita's transpositions (except the Pictures good resonance). Making things artificial is something I truly hate when it happens over at electronic. On the opposite factor, squeezing emotion out of buttons is a crafty thing.

Making things artificial is what happens when you try to squeeze music into a tired old tradition of chopping the natural interval of an octave into 12 unnatural steps which are by nature, unrelated - ie, not in tune with each other, hence we have equal temperament.

A synthesiser is an artificial instrument - it produces sounds by manipulating tones through oscillators. In and of itself it has no emotion - and cannot have.

Identifying emotion in music is not a science - for all you know, there might be a wealth of emotion in Tomita's transcriptions.

In short - where music is concerned, it is all artificial, and yet none of it is artificial. It all contains emotion, and yet none of it does - the lack of either are not reasons to hate music.

Ricochet wrote: I don't judge "pop" as "popular". I judge pop as sweet easy music that attracts the heart of a simple man.

And who are you to judge that a man is simple?

Pop is short for Popular - that's all there is to it.

Pop music isn't necessarily sweet, and intelligent people can like it as much as "simple" people.

Don't forget that thousands of people attended his concerts and bought his recordings - especially the ones I mentioned.

Ricochet wrote: Certif1ed wrote: He uses electronic instruments - so do most pop groups. Shall we say that Soft Cell, Visage and Tubeway Army were Prog-Related or Progressive Electronic? They ONLY used electronic instruments and in a very progressive way. It's hardly their fault it caught on and became popular. He does more than using instrument. He manipulated his style, he squeezed - as I've said - more that button,note and et caetera, he created a dimension out of the minimal range of his instrument. Technique being much more. You're incredibly devalorizing Jarre's intentions as an electronic musicians, I'm sorry to say that.

I'm not devaluing Jarre's music at all - I would also throw in Cabaret Voltaire and the Human League for comparison - although it's a bit unfair, as I prefer the dark sounds of the latter to Jarre's happy "sweet" sounding music.


    
    


Edited by Certif1ed - November 09 2006 at 17:49

Sleep related. Like this: "¡J. M. Jarré!" ZZZZ!!!...

Why wrong analogies Rico?

I'm just talking about being curious and innovative:

Joshua's Tree was an absolutely innovative album, solid from start to end a new and revolutionary guitar sound and pretty advanced for a POP band, they had from a straight Rock track like "Where the Streets have no Name" that adds an incredible intro and different elemnents, to almost Gospel like in "Still Haven't Found What Looking For" (As a fact they did an outstanding version in a Harlem Church with a Gospel chorus in the DVD Rattle & Hum) also had Power ballads like "With or Without You" and even an absolutely experimental track as "Mothers of the Disappeared"....If this is not innovative for a decade of bland boring POP, well, I can't get what is curious and innovative plus absolutely versatile.

If you want more, go with Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell, nobody wanted to sign them because Jim Steiinman's compositions were miles ahead of the ABAB structure, they had two or three different verses with two or three different tempos, operatic piano stravaganzas plus a 150 Kgms guy who was closer to a tenor than to a Rock singer.....that was curious and innovative but not Prog at all.

Probably saying Jarre was a POP artist is way too much, but he is mainly a mainstream Electronic artist not a Prog Electronic artist IMHO.

Iván

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - November 10 2006 at 00:21

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Why wrong analogies Rico? I'm just talking about being curious and innovative: Joshua's Tree was an absolutely innovative album, solid from start to end a new and revolutionary guitar sound and pretty advanced for a POP band, they had from a straight Rock track like "Where the Streets have no Name" that adds an incredible intro and different elemnents, to almost Gospel like in "Still Haven't Found What Looking For" (As a fact they did an outstanding version in a Harlem Church with a Gospel chorus in the DVD Rattle & Hum) also had Power ballads like "With or Without You" and even an absolutely experimental track as "Mothers of the Disappeared"....If this is not innovative for a decade of bland boring POP, well, I can't get what is curious and innovative plus absolutely versatile. Rumors by Fleetwood Mac was the top selling album for years, they formed a band with three vocalists that were able to take the lead in any moment, with three different styles (Nicks was agressive and soft at the same time borderline with Bluies, Buckingham more Rock oriented and Christine Mc Vie was absolutely melodic), the bass and drums were from another era, with a clear Hard Rock sound, they blended all this and created a commercial but intelligent product in an era when Punk and Disco music were fighting for the audience and Prog was going down (sadly), Fleetwood Mac made something simpler (apparently) but reached heights that no Punk or Disco band dreamed of. Sometimes simple is innovative.   REM Out of Time was also a good album and very innovative (Except for Shinny Happy People), songs like Loosing My Religion were almost borderline with Prog, the use of ballaika is impressive, the change of tempos, the total breaks in two parts of the song were pretty advanced and ahead of mainstream and even than most alternative bands of the time. If you want more, go with Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell, nobody wanted to sign them because Jim Steiinman's compositions were miles ahead of the ABAB structure, they had two or three different verses with two or three different tempos, operatic piano stravaganzas plus a 150 Kgms guy who was closer to a tenor than to a Rock singer.....that was curious and innovative but not Prog at all. Probably saying Jarre was a POP artist is way too much, but he is mainly a mainstream Electronic artist not a Prog Electronic artist IMHO. Iván

Okay, Okay. In the case we take all of this as absolute fact (you do seem to know a bit more about the aformentioned bands than I do) we can assume that there are "mainstream" artists that did innovative and interesting things, and that you are counting Jean-Michel Jarre among them. But then why are artists like Klaus Schulze, who made some strikingly similar music to Jean-Michel Jarre (albeit in his own style), on the archives as progressive electronic? Unless you think that they should likewise be demoted to prog-related or not be on the site at all, of course.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: I|I|I|I|I wrote: Okay, Okay. In the case we take all of this as absolute fact (you do seem to know a bit more about the aformentioned bands than I do) we can assume that there are "mainstream" artists that did innovative and interesting things, and that you are counting Jean-Michel Jarre among them. But then why are artists like Klaus Schulze, who made some strikingly similar music to Jean-Michel Jarre (albeit in his own style), on the archives as progressive electronic? Unless you think that they should likewise be demoted to prog-related or not be on the site at all, of course.   Nothing is a fact, only opinions, I will never claim something I write (except historicall events) as facts, in music nothing is black and white, there are tones of grey, and precisely in those greay areas you can find why an artist is Prog and another don't, those slight differences make a whole point.   If you mention Shultze, just for his work in Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Temple, deserves to be considered a Prog artist, while Jarre only does public concerst in which the visual effects are as important as the music, not just a visual aid, most of his songs are extremely reopetitive (Including Oxygene which is what consists mainly in variations over a same theme), his encore is a hand clapping and shaking booty piece, his solo for the astronaut is simple and boring, his performances with the laser harp are less than imaginative.   Don't misunderstand me, I have his albums and DVD's, like his music but still I can't find a strong Prog connection   I'm not so familiar with Shultze solo work but his album with Yamash'ta, Winwood and Shrieve is a masterpiece of Prog and DAS WAGNER DESASTER is also closer than Jarre will ever get.   But again, even when Shultze wasn't Prog, the if X then why not Y argument is something in what I never believed.   Iván

In terms of Shulze, it is a logical fallacy to assume that merely because of his work with other bands/artists, his solo material is also progressive. That's like saying George W. Bush has worked with Democrats, thus he must be a Democrat! Shulze must be in the progressive electronic section on the merit of his own musical work, not his work with other bands, unless the people who put him on the site work in ways I don't understand.

EVEN IF we say that Jarre is unoriginal due to his similarities to Schulze (though I think he is quite original, but for the sake of the argument) it would STILL follow that he must be in the same section as Schulze, much like the band Druid is in Symphonic Progressive along with Yes, a band they sound QUITE similar to.

I mean, if my logic appears to have gaps in it, please say so! But I think it makes quite a bit of sense.