ZOOLOOK
Jean-Michel Jarre
•Prog Related
From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website
3.42
| 150 ratings | 10 reviews | 26% 5 stars
Good, but non-essential |
Studio Album, released in 1984 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Ethnicolor (11:40) - Jean-Michel Jarre / keyboards, electronics, ethnic vocals processing, producer
Much of the album is a study in sampling, constructed from disparate sampled fragments of songs and speech in more than 30 different languages. and to Quinino for the last updates Edit this entry |
Buy JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Zoolook Music
-
DOUG LARSON IMPORTS — Buy prog rock music and rarities (Free shipping on orders over 10 CD's)
- AMAZON.COM — Best-selling prog vinyls
JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Zoolook ratings distribution
(150 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of rock music(26%)Excellent addition to any rock music collection(37%)Good, but non-essential (26%)Collectors/fans only (9%)Poor. Only for completionists (3%)
JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Zoolook reviews
Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings
Collaborators/Experts Reviews
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3.5 stars
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
May be hard to acquire for some. It was my first album by him and I loved it first time I heard it, but some people might get confused or turned off while listening to this album. It needs an open mind and patience. 4.25/5
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
PROG REVIEWER
The first seven minutes of 'Ethnicolor' serve as an introduction to the album. The track then bursts into life, and is to my ear the best thing (along with Rendez-vous II) JARRE has ever done. A forceful rhythm, including hammered drums and a funky plucked bass - yes, this is JEAN MICHEL JARRE - are joined by a fabulous synth line at the nine minute mark and the most gorgeous swirly synth exactly on 10:00. Go Jean!
The rest of the album has a similar dynamic. Some tracks are experimental - 'Diva', which title refers to Ms. Anderson and features her trademark laconic voice, if chopped up for the occasion, is one such - and others are the nearest JEAN-MICHEL JARRE gets to rocking out. You'll find something to like and something to laugh at in the second half of the album. Nice guitar work from ADRIAN BELEW, an excellent rhythm section and, well, a little too much vocalising. I find every track on the album bar the below-par and ultimately irritating 'Diva' eminently enjoyable. You gotta enjoy 'Zoolookologie' at the least; enormous fun. Say what you want about the 80s, but production techniques certainly improved. This is very crisp to the ear. What makes it work, ultimately, is the way the artificial synth is complemented by the organic voices. An absolutely essential component of electronic music, to my mind, or the result is cold and sterile.
If you love the smooth synth sound of 'Oxygene', don't come here for more of the same. I warn you, this is different. But different isn't always bad.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
Forever in search of a different angle for his albums, Jarre once again appears more infatuated with the theme than the music on "Zoolook". The sleeve notes boast that the human voices heard on the album "were created (i.e. sampled) from recordings of speech and song". He then goes on to list a plethora of languages which are included, these being "edited and transformed using different electronic devices".
Quite what the point of all this is can be rather baffling. The resulting sounds are largely those of synthesiser music with electronic drum rhythms and sampled vocals. In fairness, in 1984 when the album was released, it would all have sounded quite new and different, although even then it was hardly original. As I implied earlier though, my main gripe with the album is that the musical composition seems to have taken a rather sorry second place to the effects.
"Diva" which features the voice of Laurie ("Oh Superman") Anderson is the least distinguished of the bunch here, her vocal contribution being hacked up and apparently randomly edited back into place. Those who feel that Jarre's albums are too mainstream and wish he would do something more avant-garde should start here!
If the two long tracks on side one were undistinguished, side two's five shorter pieces are distinctly throwaway in nature. "Zoolook" sounds like the theme tune to a TV quiz show while "Wooloomooloo" degenerates into complete gibberish. The synthesiser on "Blah- blah caf�" has a slippermen like sound, but the track is lifeless and repetitive.
In all, "Zoolook" is a tediously dull album which focuses on the concept to the virtual total exclusion of the music. Those who enjoy the accessibility of much of Jarre's music should approach with particular caution, while those who wish he was less predictable will undoubtedly be surprised.
PROG REVIEWER
This one is much more on he experimental edge, but the presence of the great Laurie Anderson is not alien to the feel. The great opener "Ethnicolor" is a superb tribute to her talent. Some sort of melody is only present during the last couple of minutes which are offering an explosion, a fireworks of incredible sounds. I really like these.
I can understand that one can be "shocked" while listening to this album, but after all Jean- Mi is playing prog electronic and is allowed to offer some penetration or in-sight into less accessible paths. Which "Zoolook" certainly is.
The next "Diva" starts promisingly but ends up in a funky affair of which Belew can only be a compelling part. The title track might sound too much of an eighties synth song � la "Human League" and can be dismissed therefore. Now, to be fully honest: I won't tell you that it is a great song. Far from it?
All these sampling are not my cup of tea. I believe that Jean-Mi wanted to get back of his roots with this challenging album (as his debut "Deserted Palace" which was also quite experimental).
Don't expect anything as melodic as "Oxyg�ne" or polished as "Equinoxe". This work is quite demanding in terms of open mind. The funky "Zoolookologie" could have been taken out of a "Talking Heads" album. With added synths.
This album is not very good as a whole. A promising opening track, and that's it. This change in musical style was quite unexpected. Experimental electronic prog.
Two stars.
PROG REVIEWER
Some may find that a turn-off; I consider it key to Jarre's successful adaptation to new synthesiser technologies, and consider this a richly evocative cyberpunk-era collection which, in its own way, manages to recapture the majestic sweep of Oxygene and Equinoxe but evoke it on its own terms, rather than repeating the playbook of those albums.
Latest members reviews
Although Jarre sounded excellent with analogic synths, with Zoolook he took a great step forward, not only because of the interesting use of digital synths (nothing to do with a lot of synth-crap of mid 80's), but also because of the excellent work with sampled voices. This CD is quite avant-g ... (read more)
Report this review (#168955) | Posted by Jordi Planas | Monday, April 28, 2008 | Review Permanlink
My father found some old tapes with J.M Jarre when i was about 6 years old... Then i found them again and started listening to them, and one of them was this. The Song "Zoolokologie" was the theme for a swedish tv show, "hj�rnkontoret" in 1998- 1999... that's when i heard it for the first time. ... (read more)
Report this review (#77279) | Posted by | Saturday, May 6, 2006 | Review Permanlink
The extreme popularization of Jean Michel Guard hair flirte since always with "popularization". No French musical artist was never also universal and like moreover, Jean Michel Jarre never wanted to fix limits at the size of his gigantic show theatrical, he was logically and quickly scorned b ... (read more)
Report this review (#52091) | Posted by religionnaire | Monday, October 17, 2005 | Review Permanlink
Post a review of JEAN-MICHEL JARRE "Zoolook"
You must be a forum member to post a review, please register here if you are not.
MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE
As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.
You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).