The value of streaming platforms is estimated at a few billion dollars, and creators can only afford a pizza without pepperoni at the end of the year with the revenues. Without musicians, all those platforms wouldn't exist, so we urgently need an appropriate and sustainable business model for musicians for the 21st century.
— Jean-Michel Jarre
I have played a few times in Barcelona, including the fantastic Olympic Stadium. It's undoubtedly one of my favourite cities in terms of the people, arts, food, architecture and design.
Peace is neutral, and not very sexy.
'Oxygene' was one of the first, if not the first, popular electronic music album.
I had no precise plan when I started 'Electronica,' but I think it has been a very positive journey for me.
The difference between noise and music is in what the musician does with the sounds.
The characteristic of 'Oxygene' is a mixture of innocence and ambition, of trying to do something different in a different way.
I remember, for my fifth birthday, Chet Baker sat me on the upright piano, and he played just for me for a few minutes. I can still remember the pressure of the air on my chest. It was my first physical contact with sound.
As a musician, I have always strived for my albums and live performance to render a sound as close as possible to perfection.
I understand more when I travel why people believe that the French are arrogant.
Creative industries are more important than the car industry, luxury jewels, and fashion.
What is important to me is that the world understand that the problems of the Dead Sea concern not only residents of the region but humanity.
My first synthesizer was the VCS3. I got it in Bristol in the late Sixties, long before Pink Floyd used them. I had to sell an acoustic guitar and an old reel-to-reel tape recorder to raise the money. You can do fantastic things with modern computers, but you cannot use them in the same intuitive, spontaneous way you can a VCS3.
I used to play in rock bands. Then I went to the first school of electronic music in the world. It was in Paris headed by one of the most important people involved in electronic music.
With electronic music, you are not confined to the acoustics of a concert-hall, and that inspired me to bring my performances outdoors.
It's sometimes better to have a father figure to rebel against than nothing, than just a black hole or an absence.
I was obsessed with the idea that no two sounds on 'Oxygene' should ever be exactly the same. I wanted a heartbeat feel, something human.
My first break was in my home country with some pop songs that became hits, writing for French singers Christophe & Francoise Hardy, which became hits.
I want the Dead Sea, like Masada, to be part of UNESCO's world heritage.
I'm convinced that the earth is much stronger than us.
I leave everyone to have their own opinions of my music and my influence - or not - on others.
Dance fascinates me, and it is perhaps the most enriching audio-visual realm for a musician. Film-making also fascinates me.
When I began making electronic music, the only thing I was thinking about was creating music that I really liked. I didn't think about what effect it would have; I was busy doing it.
I wanted to find a bridge between Musique Concrete, electro-acoustic music, and proper rock music.
Bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, who I respect, have a very robotic, dehumanised approach. They're almost an apology for machines. It's very German.
I think that in any language when you have a real relationship, and there is love and respect between people, infidelity is always something difficult to accept - whether you are Chinese, British, French. I think that is a universal concept... or problem.
In my opinion, British women are more romantic than French ones.
The paradox is that Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and all the tech giants are bigger fans of music than some of the executives working at major record companies.
I collect robots. They're mainly Japanese, American, and especially Russian - small robots, big robots, and old toy robots made between 1910 and the Fifties.
To me, the original VCS3 synthesizer is like a Stradivarius.
I studied classical music in the Conservatory of Paris.
I've always been involved in the visual aspect of my work, and moreover, it's very important in days where technology allows us to push the boundaries even more than when I started out.
When you have a young man, I mean, questioning the power in place for love of his country, not to say 'stop' but to say 'be careful about the abuse of technology,' I think it deserves to be promoted.
I thought we had opposite visions of electronic music. Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk had a very robotic, mechanical approach. I had a more impressionist vision - a Ravel/Debussy approach.
I consider music like a mirage in the desert. You're obsessed with the ideal piece of music, and the more you think you're getting closer, it's not there.
Technology is neutral, but it all depends on the way we use it.
This project, 'Electronica,' is about working with people who are a strong source of inspiration to me.
Electronic musicians are quite like writers or painters. They are quite isolated in their home studios. We often don't have that the opportunity to collaborate with that many people, like in rock or jazz.
One of the first things I created was music for the Paris opera's ballet troupe. That was the first time that electronic music was played at the opera. I really like the relationship between the music and the choreography.
Early music in all kinds of movements is always a mixture of innocence and ambition.
All those ethereal string sounds on 'Oxygene IV' come from the VCS3. It was the first European synthesizer, made in England by a guy called Peter Zinoviev. I got one of the first ones.
In electronic music, staying behind your laptop for two hours is not too exciting to watch.
I just had one occasion in my life when suddenly my private life was everywhere, and that was an accident and beyond my control.
I was always interested in mixing experimentation with pop music, and Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream - we were all doing it at the same time, just very isolated from each other, all in our different cellars, in different worlds, without the Internet - underground in every sense.
My mother, who was in the Resistance in the Second World War, passed away at 96, and it was like she was 60. I almost have to apologise for my genes.
Back in the Seventies, we had a romantic, poetic vision of the future, like it was in the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey.' It felt as if everything was still ahead of us.
What is very interesting when talking about electronic music is that - I would say that rock and roll is called the ethnic music born in America that invaded the world. Electronic music is certainly kind of ethnic music born in countries like Germany and France that has invaded the world.
At the time, 'Oxygene' was considered a totally 'far out' concept... What was 'in' at the time was disco, hard-rock, and the early days of punk... and moreover, 'Oxygene' was instrumental. And I was French!
Technology does not always rhyme with perfection and reliability. Far from it in reality!
When I first heard Kraftwerk, I thought they were an American band singing in German.
