Jean Michel Jarre
Magnetic Fields

With "Magnetic Fields," released in 1981, Jarre continues the spectacularization of sound that had been the hallmark of his style in his first two albums, "Oxygène" and "Equinoxe." A very catchy electronic music, his, divided into short themes instead of long suites like those of the Germans, always very rhythmic and engaging.

A track of almost 18 minutes opens this work: "Magnetic Fields Part 1," but despite the duration, it is divided into three well-distinguished episodes. The first is built on a harmonic background enriched by the solemn melodies of the French musician; this movement is followed by a transitional episode, equally typical of Jarre, in which it really seems like flying over a mountain range aboard a small aircraft: cold drafts are heard in the rarefied air, fragments of echoing voices, electronic wind gusts crossing stereo channels from left to right; until being abruptly projected into the third episode, a track with a heavy and oppressive rhythm over which a melancholic melody moves.

The rest of the work includes more or less successful episodes: "Magnetic Fields Part 2" has a danceable rhythm and was used in Italy as the theme song for a movie trailer program; in "Part 3," noise makes its entry (never practically used by Jarre before), that of a rattling train. Yet another successful episode is "Part 4," while the conclusion of the album, "Magnetic Fields Part 5," subtitled "The Last Rhumba," is a divertissement perhaps written with the intent of imitating the little organ in the rain at the end of "Equinoxe," and instead sounds a bit vacation-like, out of place not only in the album as a whole, but more generally in Jarre's stylistic signature, at least as it was known up to that point.

An album of excellent quality at certain moments, it does not, however, maintain the same tension throughout all the tracks. In France, it was released with the title "Les Chants Magnétiques," a pun that works only for our cousins across the Alps since champs (fields) and chants (songs) are pronounced in exactly the same way. The album may be appreciated by those who do not know Jean Michel Jarre, while a hint of disappointment emerged at the time among those who were thrilled by the listening of the first two works.