Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[MarnixB]

During the 2007/08 and the 2009-2011 shows JMJ played a prelude and the Oxygene variations part 1-4 live. But are there also studio versions excisting of these songs?
Is there a chance that they will get official released with the upcoming 50th anniversary of Oxygene or is it just wishfull thinking and hoping?

[shadow]

Not sure if you'd count the Variations of the Life in Your Living Room as 'studio' release, but it's probably the closest you can get.

[Dr_Jones]

Not sure if you'd count the Variations of the Life in Your Living Room as 'studio' release, but it's probably the closest you can get.

Yeah, but Variation 4 is not on that. That was an improvisation on the live concerts between Oxygene 6 and Oxygene 12.

[Finaero]

Is there a chance that they will get official released with the upcoming 50th anniversary of Oxygene or is it just wishfull thinking and hoping?

With JMJ's disinterest in getting too deep into revisiting his past work, I kind of doubt it, but maybe if he leaves most of the 50th anniversary celebration release planning to Sony, maybe there's hope -- assuming the rights for the Variations did get transferred from Warner to them, I guess.

(Also, a bit nitpicky, but I can't currently remember if the 2007 DVDs with the live performances including the variations had lossless audio, and if they didn't, I don't think they fully count as studio versions >_>)

[Chrono93]

I don't think the Live In Your Living Room was released under Warner (it's on Capital Records which I think is under EMI but with so many labels under different companies it's easy to lose track of who owns who). But it was still released under Aero Productions so the rights may have ended up at Sony.
The audio on the 3D DVD version of Live In Your Living Room I believe is lossy but I'm not sure about the other DVD version that had the DTS version of the Oxygene album.

[Pat Gleeson]

it's on Capital Records which I think is under EMI

The Warner deal ended after the relatively poor sales of Teo & Tea, and this EMI deal was a one-off to release Oxygene Live In Your Living Room. Any momentum that might have been created for an Oxygene themed release was stalled due to Dreyfus striking a copyright claim against EMI / Aero. Dreyfus claimed the CD 'New Master Recording' was taken directly (slightly altered) from the original master tapes and thus could only be released by Dreyfus, not EMI. EMI claimed that they had witnessed first hand the recording of the audio on the CD.

[MarnixB]

Thanks for the replies! I don't count on any release but for me it's still on a wishlist

[Jote]

Dreyfus claimed the CD 'New Master Recording' was taken directly (slightly altered) from the original master tapes and thus could only be released by Dreyfus, not EMI. EMI claimed that they had witnessed first hand the recording of the audio on the CD.

Dreyfus is not wrong

[Finaero]

Yeah, the New Master Recording is the same as the previous releases with two major exceptions.

The bad: At least one of the instrumentals in Oxygene 1 (namely, the ascending note sequence in the first part of the track) is accompanied by horrible extra noise not present in any other version
The good: The bubbling transition from Oxygene 4 to 5 starts a bit later in the 2007 release, thus making it a properly unique version of the track

There might have been other minor "adjustments" but those are the ones I still remember after almost 19 years (crikey) [EDIT] That said, I tried listening to Oxygene 1 from the 2007 version and couldn't notice the "horrible extra noise" on my current wireless Bose headphones... at least at the part I remembered

[Pat Gleeson]

There might have been other minor "adjustments"

.. and the birdsong sample at the end of Part 3 isn't present on the 2007 recording.

[Dr_Jones]

There might have been other minor "adjustments"

.. and the birdsong sample at the end of Part 3 isn't present on the 2007 recording.

True, there's a crossfade between parts 3 and 4.