In short
- Paris, 5 p.m., 15 September 1976. Jean-Michel Jarre met the painter Michel Granger and asked him to rework a watercolour as a record sleeve. The painting's title became the album's title.
- Nine days later, on 24 September, Vangelis released Albedo 0.39 on RCA. The title is the share of sunlight the Earth sends back into space.
- Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze were quiet that month. The months either side were busy.
- Both records put the Earth at the centre. Two tracks to hear the month for yourself are at the end.
Paris, 5 p.m., 15 September 1976. Michel Granger went to meet a 28-year-old composer called Jean-Michel Jarre, who had yet to make a record anyone remembered. Jarre wanted one thing: could Granger redo his 30 by 40 centimetre watercolour so it would fit a square record sleeve? Ask Granger how he can be sure of the date and the hour, and he points to his diary.
- What
- things that happened around our five musicians fifty years ago this month, in September 1976
- 15 September
- Paris. Jarre meets Granger and settles on the watercolour "Oxygène" for his sleeve
- 24 September
- Vangelis releases Albedo 0.39, RCA RS 1080 (UK)
- All month
- Jarre is recording Oxygène in the kitchen of his Paris flat (August to November)
- Either side
- Tangerine Dream record Stratosfear in August, out in October. Schulze plays Berlin on 5 October
A note in a diary
The painting came first. Granger's picture of the Earth with its crust split open and a skull showing through ran, by his account, in the comics magazine Pilote in 1972, and in 1976 it hung in the Galerie Marquet on the rue Bonaparte in Paris. How it reached Jarre depends on who you ask. English Wikipedia says Jarre walked into the gallery and bought it. Granger, in a 2016 interview, says the actress Charlotte Rampling bought it and gave it to Jarre. Yet in a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Granger himself said Jarre bought it. Even the painter remembers it two ways.
What nobody disputes is the order of events. The record did not get a picture. The picture gave the record its name. Jarre felt the painting's title suited the music, so the six-part piece he was building in his kitchen that autumn became Oxygène.
We told the kitchen story in our Oxygène review. Around 15 September the recording was in full swing, with two rhythm-machine buttons taped down to make the beat. The music was maybe half done. Its face and its name were settled that afternoon. The record came out three months later, in December.
Nine days later, an Earth from London
24 September is the release date English Wikipedia gives, and it is the only source we found that names the day. It fits the rest of the record: the album entered the UK chart at number 30 on 9 October, climbed to 18 and stayed six weeks. That was the first time a Vangelis album made the UK top 20.
Vangelis made it at Nemo Studios in London, playing every instrument himself, drums included. The back of the LP explains the title: albedo is the share of light a planet reflects, and the Earth's is 39 per cent. On the closing track a man reads out the Earth's mass and the length of its year, and ends on that number. There is more in our Albedo 0.39 review.
So in the same month, in Paris and in London, two men picked up the same planet. Jarre's Earth is peeling open to show a skull. Vangelis's is reduced to a single figure. One came as a painting, the other as a number.
The quiet ones
Tangerine Dream's 1976 has a gap, and it is September. They recorded Stratosfear in Berlin in August, and it came out in October. On stage, the record jumps from the Berlin Philharmonie on 27 June to Hanover on 20 October, with nothing logged from July to September. Three months with a new album in hand, waiting for the autumn tour.
Klaus Schulze was much the same. Moondawn had been out since 16 April, and the Paris concert with Stomu Yamash'ta's Go was on 12 June. His next show was the Meta Musik Festival at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin on 5 October. We found nothing for September, and we don't make things up to fill the space.
So fifty years ago this month comes down to two scenes. One meeting in Paris, one release in London.
How to listen: two tracks for the month
- "Oxygène (Part IV)". One of the six parts Jarre built in his kitchen that autumn. Two taped-down rhythm-machine buttons keep the beat. Give it a minute and your foot finds it first.
- "Albedo 0.39". The last 4 minutes 20 seconds of the album. A voice reads out figures while the chords swell and settle. Stop on the final 0.39.
- Play them back to back with the lights off. The first one gets your feet, the second slows your breathing.
Where to get it
Both albums are still easy to find on CD and vinyl. Our reviews cover which pressings to look for.