Music Arcades: Jean Michel Jarre: Equinoxe

Here's another album, like Street Legal, that I first owned on cassette, then lost, then bought again on vinyl in 1983.

When it came out at the end of 1978, I think it may have been advertised on the TV. If so, I was suckered into the idea that this was somehow music from the future. But, apart from half a catchy tune, the synthetic washes and whoops never caught on with me. A little later at school, I remember others listening to JMJ's live album from China, but what I heard of that left me underwhelmed.

Then I heard a snatch of Equinoxe a long way from home, in Munich, in — where else? — the planetarium. Ooooh and, indeed, aaahhh! I was hooked again; and almost certainly thinking of Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series, which had been on recently, and which I loved.

So when I got back to Blighty, I re-bought the album, and was underwhelmed all over again. What JMJ did (and still does?) is old-fashioned show-business. Musically he's not even as interesting as his dad.