Bleepity-bleep

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

04/05/86 : Rendez-Vous - Jean-Michel Jarre

I always thought I had no time for the French bleep merchant, but last time we met I was forced to eat my words and admit I didn't mind that album at all - so let's see if he can keep that going.

How strange - this album isn't available on Amazon Prime. They've got loads of his other stuff, but not this one for no obvious reason. I couldn't remember my Spotify password, so we were relegated to YouTube but, for once, the sound quality was actually pretty good on there - which is probably best for something like this. And I thought it was OK - not as enjoyable as Popcorn and a bit repetitive in places, but perfectly listenable and it certainly doesn't hang around at only 35:01 long. I also recognised "Quatrième Rendez-Vous" from somewhere but can't for the life of me remember where - I'm sure Wikipedia will let me know when we get there.

We're all the way down at #15 in the chart this week on the fifth week of a thirteen week run. It then took a month off and then came back for a fifteen week run, then two months off and back for a seven week run - with #9 being as high as it ever got. The top five this week were Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music, Dire Straits, Whitney Houston, the Hits 4 compilation and, quite obviously, a Shalamar best-of with the highest new entry being the Earth, Wind & Fire best-of (#8).

Wikipedia tells us this is his eighth album and a large part of it is taken up listing all the synthesisers Jean-Michel used - ten points are available if you can guess how many. There's very little space left for anything else in there but it does give us a few interesting facts. There was a plan to include a sax part by Ron McNair which would have been played in space, but unfortunately he was one of the passengers on the Space Shuttle Challenger, so that never came to pass. As part of the album's promotion and also, obviously, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Texas, Jean-Michel played an outdoor concert in Houston which attracted 1.5 MILLION people! And, finally, I am reminded me that I recognise "Quatrième Rendez-Vous" from ITV's coverage of the 1998 World Cup - silly me for forgetting that. The album did OK globally, #6 in Finland and #8 in Sweden being the best chart positions listed - but it doesn't give us any data for France and I suspect it did pretty well over there, it also got to #52 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" - well, we'll never know because it's not on Amazon, but I suspect you can probably guess the kind of thing. I didn't mind this, but there wasn't enough to drag me back to it, I'm afraid.

And you get ten points if you guessed that Jean-Michel used seventeen different synthesisers, although you can also have the points if you included the three different ones or the two drum machines that other people played! I assume Jean-Michel thought they were all necessary - I'd have to say I'm not 100% convinced, but that's why he does what he does and I don't.

27/04/86 - Well, at least he sounds happy
11/05/86 - Fine, but not for me