Jean Michel Jarre
I don't necessarily like anniversaries that much.Collection: Anniversary
I remember, for my fifth birthday, Chet Baker sat me on the upright piano, and he played just for me for a few minutes. I can still remember the pressure of the air on my chest. It was my first physical contact with sound.Collection: Birthday
Technology is neutral, but it all depends on the way we use it.Collection: Technology
I have played a few times in Barcelona, including the fantastic Olympic Stadium. It's undoubtedly one of my favourite cities in terms of the people, arts, food, architecture and design.Collection: Architecture
We have lost our vision for the future. Before, we say, 'Nothing will be the same. Cars will fly, and we go to the end of the universe.' We have this kind of naive but exciting idea of the future. Now, the vision has been reduced to ways to select our garbage and how to survive global warming.Collection: Car
My first synthesizer was the VCS3. I got it in Bristol in the late Sixties, long before Pink Floyd used them. I had to sell an acoustic guitar and an old reel-to-reel tape recorder to raise the money. You can do fantastic things with modern computers, but you cannot use them in the same intuitive, spontaneous way you can a VCS3.Collection: Computers
For me, electronic music is the classical music of the 21st century.Collection: Music
Bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, who I respect, have a very robotic, dehumanised approach. They're almost an apology for machines. It's very German.Collection: Respect
Saying that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.
The difference between noise and music is in what the musician does with the sounds.
When I first heard Kraftwerk, I thought they were an American band singing in German.
Suddenly, we are putting ourselves as the next dinosaurs. It's rather dark; we have narrowed our dreams. It is time to restore our visions. And so it's not a nostalgic idea; it is based with this unconscious need to restore a kind of dynamic for tomorrow.
My father and I never really achieved a real relationship. We probably saw each other 20 or 25 times in our lifetime.
As a musician, I have always strived for my albums and live performance to render a sound as close as possible to perfection.
I feel very privileged to have played China, and the pyramids, all these fantastic places, but it created a kind of smoke curtain between the audience and me as a musician.
Most of the time, when you are in the studio, you are revealing yourself; you're a bit naked. You can express your weaknesses, your awkward way of approaching sound. Sharing these intimate moments is like inviting somebody into your private room.
If you get rid of music, images, videos, words and literature from the smartphone, you just have a simple phone that would be worth $50.
When I heard Edward Snowden's story, it reminded me of my mother in a strange way. She was in the French resistance from early on, 1941. At that time, the Resistance were considered troublemakers - even traitors - in France.
When you think after 25 years of Mao, Chinese people had no idea about western music or even western culture. They had no idea about James Dean or the Beatles or Charlie Chaplin, modern music or modern cinema.
We all think we are connected to the world now, but we are not talking to our neighbours any more.
What may not have value to you today may have value to an entire population, entire people, an entire way of life tomorrow. And if you don't stand up for it, then who will?
When I was at the Group for Musical Research, with this idea of discovering electronic music, I quickly realized that that it was a very interesting and exciting approach to music, but I also saw that it was very intellectual and quite dogmatic.
I was recently realizing that I've probably spent 80 percent of my life in studios! It's very difficult to do that and still have a private life; it's very difficult to do anything else.
Governments can help support European music by promoting public awareness that when people take music that doesn't belong to them, they undermine the future of those very artists whose work they enjoy.
If music is to continue to support the livelihoods of artists, it cannot be taken without the permission of artists.
Music is the backbone of my shows.
When I compose an album, I don't think about how to adapt it on stage.
With the violin, for example, one understands culturally that the sound comes from the instrument that can be seen. With electronic music, it is not the same at all. That's why it seemed so important to me, from the beginning of my career, to invent a grammar, a visual vocabulary adapted to electronic music.
I am not someone who is afraid; I am someone who reasons.
When I did the first 'Oxygene' in the vinyl days, I had a structure in mind divided in 2 parts fitting the A&B sides of an album.
I did the first 'Oxygene' on an 8 tracks tape recorder with very few instruments, with no other choice than being minimalist.
People don't realize enough how important and influentical John Carpenter has been in electronic music. He did his soundtracks by himself, using mostly electronic and analog synthesizers. He's a cult figure with DJs these days for good reasons.
Some collaborators might join forces in certain cities or special concerts. I'm excited to share the stage with some prestigious people that I love and respect.
Even if we artists are all very privileged, there's a constant frustration about how to do more or better, and never being satisfied.
Sometimes, you try something, and it works in terms of success. That doesn't mean you like what is a hit. Sometimes you like the most obscure song on your album.
In a lifetime, you can say, yes, you have instances of pleasure, of happiness, you like some of your work, but your work is the entire story, and if you are not satisfied with a few moments of a few parts of that story, you would like to be able to adjust that.
Emotions are the basics of any art form!
For me, electronic music is like cooking: it's a sensual organic activity where you can mix ingredients.
People are rejecting the power of the elite, but individuals such as Snowden are doing so in a positive way, trying to change things for the better. He is a very intelligent man and obviously interested in electronic music.
I have always been of the opinion that when those in power are promoting actions and ideals that risk harming or impeding us, people should stand up to this.
Snowden has demonstrated true love for his country. He has done something to improve the lives of people.
I always dreamed, when I started writing music, to find a way of immersing yourself in it.
Our senses have changed, even though our emotions have not.
CDs are not as good as vinyl, and you buy one in the supermarket along with the yoghurt.
The whole 'Electronica' project is about the ambiguous relationship we have with technology: on the one side, we have the world in our pocket; on the other, we are spied on constantly.
People who do music do it because it is all they can do. And that's me, I suppose. I can do nothing else.
From the outside, being an artist seems like a dream life, but there are much darker aspects to it.
I would say to anyone starting out that if their priority in life is happiness, then don't be a musician.
Pursuing music eats into your life to the point where there is no space left for anything else. You are lucky if you find a partner who is able to understand that, but even then, they will only understand it for a while, and then things get - you know, difficult.
I wanted to create a bridge between experimental music and pop.