1980-1989


Houston 1987

Jarre’s third album Magnetic Fields is released in 1981. That same year he becomes the first Western musician to be invited to perform in post-Mao Red China. His concerts in Peking and Shanghai, make history in the line of cultural events in the country and are shared by 500 million listeners and viewers on the People’s radio and television.

A double LP, Concerts in China, is released the following year, a musical souvenir of the Chinese adventure.

 

In 1983, Jarre provokes a stir by putting up for auction the unique copy of Music for Supermarkets at the Hotel Drouot Auction House in Paris and having the plates destroyed in presence of a bailiff. The LP was for a long time one of the most sought-after collectors in history.

 

Zoolook is released in 1984. It is voted Instrumental Album of the year in the US, Victoire de la Musique and Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros in France. Jarre reaches into a new artistic direction and works with Laurie Anderson, Adrian Belew and Marcus Miller. He uses a multitude of foreign language intonations which made the album one of the most sampled at the time.

 

In 1986, Jean Michel Jarre stages a memorable state-of-the-art concert on the Houston skyline in the U.S. in collaboration with the City Hall and NASA. 1.3 million Americans camped for hours to share the event and Rendez-Vous, the new album. The live attendance in Houston gained Jarre his second entry in the Guinness Book of Records and People Magazine elected the European musician Person of the Year.To celebrate his homecoming to France a few months later, Jarre’s home city of Lyon invite him to perform the night of Pope John Paul II visit in October. His native town and region turned out en masse (1 million).

 

1987 sees the release of Houston-Lyon, Cities in Concert, a live double album. Jean Michel Jarre is awarded two Victoires de la Musique, Instrumental Album of the year for Rendez-Vous and Concert of the year for Houston.

 

In 1988 he releases Revolutions, one of the first encounters of electronic music and the Arab world of instruments and sounds.

This same year brings him to London’s Docklands where he stages two concerts in appalling weather conditions. 250 000 tickets sold like lightning as the British, being among his most fervent supporters from day one, would not miss this event, including H.R.H. Princess Diana.


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