RIP Vangelis

blissblogger

Well-known member
Did an email interview with him once - he was quite irascible. Bit like how I'd imagine interviewing Ennio Morricone would be like (very much the Maestro according to a journalist friend who did get to speak to the Great Man).

I expressed enthusiasm for his unusually dissonant and amorphously abstract LP Beaubourg and he seemed to regard this as idiotic response. The gist I came with was that the record had been intended a joke, expressive of his dislike of the Pompidou Centre and modern architecture in general.

Yet on Wiki it says he was very impressed by Centre Georges Pompidou
 

william_kent

Well-known member

Aphrodite's Child - The Four Horsemen

from the early Vangelis concept album, 666

Demis Roussos on vocals, before he became a large MOR star
 

DLaurent

Well-known member
Always liked the sliding note thing at the start of Blade Runner. I think that's the ribbon controller on the CS80.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Did an email interview with him once - he was quite irascible. Bit like how I'd imagine interviewing Ennio Morricone would be like (very much the Maestro according to a journalist friend who did get to speak to the Great Man).

I expressed enthusiasm for his unusually dissonant and amorphously abstract LP Beaubourg and he seemed to regard this as idiotic response. The gist I came with was that the record had been intended a joke, expressive of his dislike of the Pompidou Centre and modern architecture in general.

Yet on Wiki it says he was very impressed by Centre Georges Pompidou
Baited
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
tough to access the legacy of artists like this (and jean michel jarre, klauz schultz) because what made them good was essentially that they were complete fucking oblivious idiots. the earlier modernists were sharp enough to realize that electronic music afforted new compositional possibilities, had the potential to drastically differ from what came before in terms of how it was both heard and composed, but the results of all their work were often abstruse and unsensual. on the other hand, it never even occurred to people like vangelis that they should do anything with the new tech but what was most obvious, what it had already been drilled into their heads that musicians should do: namely, noodle around on a standard tuning keyboard until they'd arrived at a few pleasant tonal chord progressions and melodies. this worked out because, as suspended has talked about, traditions often exist for a good reason, and to western ears simple tonal music is often pleasant and easy to emotionally access. but the "futuristic" qualities in this music that mean so much to the over 40s who were blown away by blade runner or whatever as kids are entirely to the credit of the people who designed the tech itself. not the egotists who saw electronic music as piano playing with a few extra bells and whistles added. vangelis et al were simply lucky enough to get there before the millions of people who make comparable music now. tbf they were no doubt also a bit more naturally gifted, a bit more industrious as well. but still. their music is a glorified synth demo. there was no lateral thinking involved, they just had to decide which chord to hold down after selecting a preset. before and after his death vangelis has been touted as this "visionary" but he was the complete fucking opposite, a complacent unthinking conduit of his time.

tl;dr i'm sure if i dug into his back catalogue i'd find some music by vangelis i liked, but i know he wasn't an Audio Animator, he wasn't a genius.
 

woops

is not like other people
tough to access the legacy of artists like this (and jean michel jarre, klauz schultz) because what made them good was essentially that they were complete fucking oblivious idiots. the earlier modernists were sharp enough to realize that electronic music afforted new compositional possibilities, had the potential to drastically differ from what came before in terms of how it was both heard and composed, but the results of all their work were often abstruse and unsensual. on the other hand, it never even occurred to people like vangelis that they should do anything with the new tech but what was most obvious, what it had already been drilled into their heads that musicians should do: namely, noodle around on a standard tuning keyboard until they'd arrived at a few pleasant tonal chord progressions and melodies. this worked out because, as suspended has talked about, traditions often exist for a good reason, and to western ears simple tonal music is often pleasant and easy to emotionally access. but the "futuristic" qualities in this music that mean so much to the over 40s who were blown away by blade runner or whatever as kids are entirely to the credit of the people who designed the tech itself. not the egotists who saw electronic music as piano playing with a few extra bells and whistles added. vangelis et al were simply lucky enough to get there before the millions of people who make comparable music now. tbf they were no doubt also a bit more naturally gifted, a bit more industrious as well. but still. their music is a glorified synth demo. there was no lateral thinking involved, they just had to decide which chord to hold down after selecting a preset. before and after his death vangelis has been touted as this "visionary" but he was the complete fucking opposite, a complacent unthinking conduit of his time.

tl;dr i'm sure if i dug into his back catalogue i'd find some music by vangelis i liked, but i know he wasn't an Audio Animator, he wasn't a genius.
All fair points but the stuff is written into my DNA, blade runner is my favourite film, I used to listen to the soundtrack every night going to sleep.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I like the blade runner soundtrack and film a lot, but is the officially released OST album worth listening to? Doesn't it miss out loads of stuff that was in the film? I know there are bootlegs and that of the full thing going round but I've never really investigated.
 

woops

is not like other people
I like the blade runner soundtrack and film a lot, but is the officially released OST album worth listening to? Doesn't it miss out loads of stuff that was in the film? I know there are bootlegs and that of the full thing going round but I've never really investigated.
My favourite version was called the esper edition
 
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