Hello All,
After months of silence, I received a bunch of messages in this echo. To 
catch up, hereby a text I wrote about a less known form of ProgRock: 
ProgSynth.
The part on Jean Michel Jarre is a bit larger, because I'm a huge fan of 
Jean-Mi. This text was written some days ago, and just yesterday I went to 
his concert in Brussels. I'm too overwhelmed to describe the sensation. If I 
altered the text now, it would become too large and too complicated to post.
Comments are very welcome.
History of Electric Music / Synthesizer
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
In the late sixties, Rock groups started using synthesizers as a basic 
instrument. The Beatles occasionally used a piano, but no electric keyboard, 
whereas rock groups like Deep Purple and Pink Floyd had full time keyboard 
players. Most of the time this was strictly a rock organ or mellotron, like 
Deep Purple. Pink Floyd experimented with real synthesizers: Rick Wright 
learned to program the sounds to adapt them to their needs and set the right 
environment and background for the music. A fine example of this is _Shine On 
You Crazy Diamond_. The Alan Parsons Project also used a lot of synths, among 
with other electronical devices to improve sounds, but more as a stand-alone 
instrument next to the guitars, the bass, the drums and the vocals.
In the early seventies, a new music group developed from the early new age 
music. Most of these groups are one-man groups. Mike Oldfield for example 
plays every instrument himself on his _Tubular Bells_ (1973): some different 
keyboards, electric guitars with various additional effects, and classical 
instruments (grand piano, violin, spanish guitar, ...). Oldfield is not a 
real synth artist: he plays mostly instrumental music with keyboard as main 
instrument. It can be compared to early Pink Floyd suites such as _Saucerful 
of
Secrets_ (1968), _Atom Heart Mother Suite_ (1970) or _Echoes_ (1971). The 
problem with  Oldfield is that, while he has excellent ideas, he doesn't know 
anything about music. He places a 1/4 rhythm over a 1/3 background, he goes 
from major to minor and back, he suddenly breaks the music, ... They're great 
songs, but the mistake Oldfield made was to put them all in one song. Later, 
Oldfields style settled, he used less keyboards and more other instruments, 
like in Crises (1983), which is very ProgRock, but not real synth.
Nowadays, Oldfields music tends to be New-Age: synths with wide soundscapes, 
and very few other instruments. A good example of this is _Songs of Distant 
Earth_ (1996), the soundtrack to Arthur C. Clarke's Science Fiction novel.
In about the same period, Vangelis started experimenting with keyboards. He 
didn't use any common instrument, but instead replaced their sounds with 
those of a keyboard. His songs could be easily played by a regular rock band. 
_Pulstar_ and _Spiral_ are fine examples of this music. His later music was 
more background music (like _Bladerunner_, _Chariots Of Fire_ and _Conquest 
of Paadise_), or even New Age (like _Direct_ or _Voices_). His first music 
was great, but now he has become repetitive: there's nothing new in his 
music, every album sounds the same. He produces about five albums every year.
The, in 1975, Jean Michel Jarre published his first album: _Oxygene_. Jarre 
doesn't use keyboards, he *forms* them: he does things that weren't 
originally planned by the producers of the keyboards. He creates Soundscapes, 
Rhythms, Stories. Here we have a completely new form of music. _Oxygene_ was 
a huge success, it was a world wide best seller, the live performance still 
has the record for most attended one-night outdoor live concert. Jarre's 
concerts use the city as stage: one of his tours was called _Europe in 
Concert_. For the _Concert for Tolerance_, he used the entire Paris La 
Defense as a giant screen
for his light show.
_Oxygene_ was followed by _Equinoxe_ and _Magnetic Fields_, both albums in 
the same style, but with very different themes. Using other keyboards, Jarre 
puts something new in every  album. After _Magnetic Fields_, Jarre started 
using digital keyboards. He could produce even more different sounds, but 
lost the soft sound of analog keyboards.
Jarre also experiments: _Waiting for Cousteau_ for example is a song that 
lasts for about 42 minutes. It is produced by a computer program for 
fractals. Another album,_Music for Supermarkets_, was pressed only once and 
sold to the highest bidder. Jarre wanted to show that while a Picasso or Van 
Gogh is painted once and sold, a piece of music is  pressed and sold 
thousands of time. If you find it in your music store, it is a bootleg of the 
only radio broadcast ever.
Jarre became more and more rock as time went by. _Rendez-Vous_ is very 
modern, and _Revolutions_ (1994) goes even further, where Jarre uses guitars 
with maximum distortion. By then, Jarre was known as the King of Techno, even 
though his pieces were only played in disco's when remixed. _Revolution, 
Revolutions_ is pure techno. But even then, it's still Progrock.
On his latest album, _Oxygene 7-13_ (1997), Jarre goes back to his first 
period: he only uses analog synths, and even uses the _Oxygene_ theme. The 
show, however, will be completely different: for the first time, Jarre plays 
the entire tour indoors in relatively small concert halls. I have no idea 
about what I should expect when I see it on May 30th.
In the 80's such groups as Tangerine Dream, OMD and Kraftwerk flourished. TD 
is reported to be a bit like post-Waters Pink Floyd, while Kraftwerk is 
nowadays pure German techno. They were quite Prog in the early 80's though, 
with such albums as _Trans Europe Express_ and _Autobahn_. Orchestral 
Manouvres in the Dark is accepted as ProgRock. In most of their songs, they 
make intensive use of keyboards. Some of their Hits often appear on those 
dreadful 'Synthesizer Greatest Hits' collections.
In the 90's, most synth has become new age, like Vangelis: Kitaro (_Dream_) 
and others combine world music with synths and cannot really be called synth 
anymore. There's also Enigma, which is like a modern Mike Oldfield: Michael 
Cretu is the only performer (except for some exotic instruments and backing 
vocals) and he combines new age world music with rock guitar pieces and 
vocals. His _Le Roi est Mort. Vive le Roi_ (1996) is a concept album in the 
most strict meaning of the word: it not only has the music, which is very 
global and complete, but the CD booklet has a very complicated structure, it 
is transparant, and it has a very strong and exotic smell.
-/_-,                                    | Fidonet: 2:292/867.5     |
Steven                                   | svim@urania.knooppunt.be |
--- FMail/386 1.02
---------------