Jean-Michel Jarre & M83 Debut ‘Glory’ Video

Jean-Michel Jarre is cranking up the hype machine for his upcoming, still-to-be-named studio album.

Today, he released the music video for Glory, a collaboration with fellow Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez (M83). The video explores how we often glorify the absurd.

Here’s what director Lisa Paclet has to say about the video:

“When I listened to ‘Glory,’ I was struck by the lyrics ‘We could never have it all.’ That to me crystallized a very contemporary feeling of impotence. Jean-Michel Jarre told me he wanted the video to be ‘dark and sunny,’ so I opted for a slightly sardonic take on the concept of glory.

I wanted to glorify useless action though a series of absurd sports, preformed by athletes that run after unreachable, constantly shifting goals.

As the clip progresses the athletes subtly rebel against their pointless task, either though deliberate action of failure, breaking the repetitive cycle to which they are constrained. Their failures reveal a breach of humanity, which ricochets within the public; who in turn reacts in a progressively entropic fashion.”

Jarre fans may notice a visual reference to Equinoxe.

In addition to Glory, the new album will feature several other collaborations:

  • Conquistador with Gesaffelstein;
  • Watching You with Massive Attack’s Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja; and
  • Zero Gravity with Tangerine Dream.

Zero Gravity is one of the final recordings Tangerine Dream’s Edgar Froese made before his passing earlier this year.

32 thoughts on “Jean-Michel Jarre & M83 Debut ‘Glory’ Video

  1. Apparently, he’s been working on this album for 4 years. Looks like it is an album of collaborations. In addition to those mentioned above, there is at least John Carpenter, and possibly Gary Numan & Vince Clarke. It has probably been finished for a while and he is just milking singles from it.

  2. It is sad when the sum of the parts isn’t greater than the parts them selves.
    Still, I’ll be looking forward to listen to the rest of the album – except if the vocals are all in this register.

    1. I know Jarre personally and will tell him not to release his music just because you don’t like this type of “vocal register”.

      In fact i do believe JMJ should release Equinox 2 or Oxygene 3 instead and forget about moving forward 🙂

      Ciao

    2. I’d never heard of M83 until this came along. A search on youtube reveals a whole bunch of wishy-washy breathy-pop tracks and this video sounds very typical of the M83 stuff it seems. There is nothing in this song I would recognise as representative of Jean Michel Jarre. An unfortunate collaboration I would say.

  3. This video really hits home for me. How you have to practice something even a little detail over and over a 1,000,000 times to reach greatness and perfection in your craft, and those who are great never feel like they could stop training.

  4. I thus conclude that M83 is utter wank. I took a look at their other videos too. Jean Michel Jarre? Well there is nothing in the song that would give even the slightest hint of his contribution… This sounds 100% m83. Perhaps Jean Michel only contributed the binoculars?

  5. Well I thought the video was pretty cool myself. It’s also consistent with the style of the handful of videos Jarre’s made over the years, none which ever looked like American videos to me. His mega concerts were where the big action were and no one has ever come close to those.

    A bit underwhelmed by this track, but it’s not too different from most of the electro stuff out there these days. Which why I’m underwhelmed. It would have been nice if he found more interesting musicians to collaborate with, maybe Infected Mushroom, Shpongle, Regina Spektor, Dolly Parton or do some collaborations with people outside european region like Ronnie the Botswana guitar guy, or even just about any Afghan or Yemeni pop star.

    1. Ditto

      He’s Godard of his genre, not a fruitless otaku so…. he’s enetitled to do whatever he likes.

      And yes, please kindly bring some web links to one of your colloborative albums you have produced with these (or similar musicians) to help us better understand this criticism

  6. I’d like all the critics to provide links to their accomplishments. I’m sure we could all benefit from being exposed to their works. Any takers? I predict not.

    1. A critic doesnt necessarily need to be an artist himself. All he needs is an understanding of what he likes and what is beautiful in Art.

      This piece is not beautiful, nor is it pushing boundaries, invoking emotions or taking the listener anywhere besides the lower end of the top 40’s standard.

      A person can have a profound understandings and ear/eye for art and not have touched an instrument or paint brush. And similarly, an accomplished artist can have a not so acute sense of form or space in other works besides his own.

      Music is created to be listened to, judged, critiqued, enjoyed, hated etc. At least we’re talking – the worst thing is not to get bad critique, but to get no critique at all 😉

      1. This is the very “contemporary feeling of impotence”

        Neither this piece nor the monsieur himself is obliged to “be beautiful, push boundaries, invoke emotions or take the listener anywhere”

        You’re right about relative usefulness of a “bad critique” but if “milking”, “pile of shit”, “Meh”, “hate”, “15 yr old” is regarded as critique of any kind I have nothing more to say

        1. Then please feel free to say nothing 🙂

          If music is not beautiful in some way, then it should not exist. Even the darkest piece or the angriest death metal tune has some beauty in that the artist has clearly poured himself into it.

          Art is meant to be beautiful, If it isnt, its not art.

          The only variable – your opinion of beauty

  7. I nromally dont mind M83, Seems to me like Jarre has helped him write one of his weakest records.

    Sounds like something a 15 yr old French boy would write in his bedroom, certainly not two accomplished musicians.

  8. Finely crafted synth pop, but it does nothing for me.

    Sadly, we all love Jarre for his three classic 70s albums, which he’ll never be able to surpass, leaving him trying to adapt what he does best to fit today’s mold.

    I liked his collab with Edgar Froese, but that won’t happen again.

    My take is that this album is going to be all over the place.

  9. Seems that many people here aren’t impressed with Jean-Michel Jarre’s new work. Which begs the question, were you expecting to be impressed by the work of Jean-Michel Jarre? I personal have never been impressed by any of his offering, a bit safe and provincial, and I wasn’t expecting that to turn into an stunning creative explosion in his later years. It is as good as anything he has done.

    1. Yes, I was expecting something much better. JMJ is capable and has a history of great music. This however is like someone else did it. Not even close to his past work.

    2. JMJ has his own identifiable style, it’s not hard-edged, gothic, but it has a French edge and I for one like Oxygene, Equinox and some of his other albums. As others have stated about this particular track, it doesn’t have any of JMS’s sound. It’s very generic and m83-sounding.

  10. Nice pop electro song, however I agree with most of the people above: not a “Jarre sauce” over it (perhaps except of the drum sounds/drum loop at the first part….)

Leave a Reply to Raphael Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *