En_attendant_Cousteau

<i>En attendant Cousteau</i>

En attendant Cousteau

1990 studio album by Jean-Michel Jarre

En attendant Cousteau (English title: Waiting for Cousteau) is the tenth studio album by French electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre, released on Disques Dreyfus, licensed to Polydor. The title is a reference to the play Waiting for Godot.

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Originally, Jarre intended to call it 'Cousteau sur la plage (Cousteau on the beach)', but it was changed on the last moment. A promotional tape contained this title.[2]

The album was dedicated to Jacques-Yves Cousteau and was released on his 80th birthday 11 June 1990. AllMusic described the album as "groundbreaking stuff", due to its stylistic differences from his other albums.[1] The album reached Number 14 in the UK charts.[3]

En attendant Cousteau is divided into two distinct stylistic halves: the first three pieces titled "Calypso" and the title track, an ambient piece which was used in the soundtrack of a 1991 documentary entitled "Palawan: Le dernier refuge" by Cousteau and Jarre. However two tracks from that documentary did not appear on the final album.[4]

The title track was also played at Jarre's exposition Concert d'images in Paris, 1989. According to a Jarre fan-magazine,[5] it was created via an app on an Atari Mega-ST,[6] on which Jarre programmed 16 starting notes. He apparently got the idea from the book 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' by Douglas Adams . He denied it in a later interview, claiming all notes are actually played by hand, noting however that the track includes some time-stretched samples mixed into the background.[7]

Jarre performed the album for about 2.5 million people at the Paris La Défense concert on 14 july 1990, featuring The Amoco Renegades, a steel-drum band from Trinidad and Tobago.

Track listing

CD edition

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All music is composed by Jean-Michel Jarre

Vinyl and cassette edition

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Personnel

Personnel listed in album liner notes:[8]

Charts

Chart (1990) Peak
position
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[9] 19
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)[10] 11
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[11] 27
Spanish Albums (AFYVE)[12] 37
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[13] 22
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[14] 21
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[15] 27
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[16] 11
UK Albums (OCC)[17] 14

Certifications and sales

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References

  1. [1]
    En attendant Cousteau at AllMusic
  2. [2]
    "aerozonejmj". aerozonejmj.fr. 2014-03-27. Retrieved 2023-11-04.
  3. [3]
    "UK Music charts". EveryHit.com. Retrieved 2008-02-14.
  4. [4]
    "Aerozonejmj". aerozonejmj.fr. 2019-03-03. Retrieved 2023-11-04.
  5. [5]
    Conductor Of The Masses - Issue 5. UK: Conceptual Publishing. July 1991. p. 30.
  6. [6]
    AMI (Algorithmic Musical Instrument) By Cadenza Software. However, likely the name should be ACT (Algorithmic Compositional Tool), which "generates random musical output, based on user-defined notes, which can be controlled in real time using a GEM interface or a MIDI source", as listed on https://www.ataritoday.com/extra/.
  7. [7]
    "Aerozonejmj". aeorozonejmj.fr. 2019-01-19. Retrieved 2024-04-22.
  8. [8]
    Waiting For Cousteau (booklet). Disques Dreyfus/Polyodr. 1990. 843 614-2.
  9. [9]
    "Austriancharts.at – Jean Michel Jarre – En attendant Cousteau" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  10. [10]
    Finnish charts:
    • Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. p. 168. ISBN 978-951-1-21053-5.
    |- "Discography Jean-Michel Jarre". finnishcharts.com. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
  11. [11]
    "Longplay-Chartverfolgung at Musicline" (in German). Musicline.de. Phononet GmbH. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  12. [12]
    Salaverri, Fernando (September 2005). Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002 (1st ed.). Spain: Fundación Autor-SGAE. ISBN 84-8048-639-2.
  13. [13]
    "Swedishcharts.com – Jean Michel Jarre – En attendant Cousteau". Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  14. [14]
    "Swisscharts.com – Jean Michel Jarre – En attendant Cousteau". Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  15. [15]
    "Dutchcharts.nl – Jean Michel Jarre – En attendant Cousteau" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  16. [16]
    "Norwegiancharts.com – Jean Michel Jarre – En attendant Cousteau". Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  17. [17]
    "Jean Michel Jarre | Artist | Official Charts". UK Albums Chart. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  18. [18]
    "French album certifications – J-Michel JARRE – En attendant Cousteau" (in French). InfoDisc. Select J-MICHEL JARRE and click OK. 
  19. [19]
    Fitzmaurice, Larry (22 May 1993). "Around The French Companies". Billboard. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  20. [20]
    Sólo Éxitos 1959–2002 Año A Año: Certificados 1979–1990 (in Spanish). Iberautor Promociones Culturales. 2005. ISBN 8480486392.
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