User:TangoTizerWolfstone/sandbox

Those interviews
"‘Beaubourg’ is the big modern museum in Paris, which I found very bizarre. But what you call contemporary serious music, I just call the music of today. I had a more ’pop’ style too, but this time I wanted to do something really non-commercial. I find it really ironic to see in the pop section of the record stores the kind of music you’d normally find on ‘Deutsche Grammophon’ or Nonesuch. I also wanted to show that, having had the courage to make that kind of record, I could succeed with it. Which is what happened, no thanks to RCA which tried to bury the record.".

the bigger one

History
Audio review.

"the more avant-garde"

Metal Machine Music/Zero Tolerance for Silence comparisons.

Fact discussing it in a guide to him.

US release date sometime in Nov.

Walrus reviewing import. 2 Oct. "Vangelis goes off the deep end. Or at least out in deep space. Beaubourg is an eery exploration into keyboard abstraction. Not too musical. Obscure. Special programming."

Walrus reviewing main US release. 25 Dec. Same review as before minus 'Special programming' and with denoting it was 'reviewed' as an import already.

On PII, "primarily improvised on one or more Yamaha CS-80s, and a ring modulator, which 'transforms simple tones into complex noises' and 'includes 'dramatic transformations of tonality' and short melodies that 'suddenly drift into distorted noises."

Critical reception
Evening Post (Reading) reviewer Dave Murray: Says he did all composing, arranging, instruments, producing, cover. "Even by Vangelis' standards, it's all rather overdone - bells clang and synthesisers whirr, but the pictures painted are very messy."

Buffalo Evening News article by Andrew Stiller.

The Morning Call reviewer Dave Gaskill.

The Arizona Republic reviewer Gus Walker. Along with Equinoxe says "Either of these albums is fit for the contemporary electronic music enthusiast. [Jarre] presents mysterious, brooding melodies while Vangelis' random clanging calls to mind experiments by Edgar Varese and is far from restful."

Evening Post (Bristol) reviewer James Belsey. By then a "solo keyboards maestro" after Aphrodite's Child. Returns with "a difficult, unapproachable album of electronic sounds. The piece lasts two sides, comes to no obvious conclusion and is a bit of a pain."

Stevens Point (Wis.) Daily Journal or Stevens Point Journal reviewer Jack Burke. "composed, arranged, produced and performed by Vangelis, from way out in orbit, takes some getting used to."

The Age (1984) reviewer Michael Shmith.

(Steve McDonald of AllMusic noted that the album is a "difficult listening" due to its style and "great dark synthesized tone poem". Henri Stirk from Background Magazine similarly rated the 2013 edition by Esoteric Recordings with 2/5 stars.)

Attempt to synthesise
Robin Smith of Record Mirror: "a bummer", "nothing more than a selection of bangs, squeaks and other assorted noises under the guise of ART. Most of the album sounds like computers copulating, a series of discordant wheezes in the night." No commercial viability and "little that's vaguely listenable".
 * negative

Dave Murray of Reading's Evening Post said that "Even by Vangelis' standards, it's all rather overdone - bells clang and synthesisers whirr, but the pictures painted are very messy."

The Morning Call reviewer Dave Gaskill said he could not understand the album's "garish electronic chirps and twitterings".

Evening Post (Bristol) reviewer James Belsey deemed it a "a difficult, unapproachable album of electronic sounds. The piece lasts two sides, comes to no obvious conclusion and is a bit of a pain."

Stevens Point (Wis.) Daily Journal or Stevens Point Journal reviewer Jack Burke said Vangelis created the album "from way out in orbit" and that it "takes some getting used to."

Buffalo Evening News article by Andrew Stiller (this is the pop avant one); says Heldon and Vangelis "sound remarkably similar to each other. They are what amounts to synthesizer ensembles. [continued]
 * positive

Reviewing the 1984 reissue for The Age, Michael Smith said it is "very much an experimental album" that is unlike "Chariots of Fire", and "like much of Tangerine Dream's material, shows just what is possible when an expert gets hold of electronic keyboards." It "may sound like a spaced-out cacophony to some ears - it does to some in my house - but it does show that synthesisers can do a lot more than some people lead us to believe." cont.

Legacy
Lindstrom's Six Cups of Rebel: "I guess I like it when artists don’t repeat themselves over and over again. I think on this album I’ve gone further out than before but I’m not sure if it’s for the best. [laughs] I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m really happy with the album but I don’t know if it’s… too much. [laughs] I really like Vangelis and I was really excited when I first heard the album Beaubourg, which is basically two long tracks made on the Yamaha CS-80 with a lot of weird ring modulator noise, and it’s just noodling but it’s really far out if you compare it to Chariots Of Fire. I would compare it to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music."

Jan Deans and Susan Wright discuss "Beaubourg Part II" as an educational tool for children in their book Dance-Play and Drawing-Telling as Semiotic Tools for Young Children’s Learning (2019), in regards to helping children improvise movements as expression to expressive forms of music.