O2 To My Ears, H2O From Her Eyes

I can confidently claim to have experienced three seminal musical experiences in my life. One was watching Gary Numan perform Are "Friends" Electric? on Top Of The Pops. Another was listening to Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express album for the first time on my Grandma's old phonographic wooden sideboard - the retro styling of the album's sleeve in perfect synthesis with the futurist sound and the ancient hardware being used to play it. The third moment, prior to both of those just mentioned, was when I heard Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygene drifting down from the open window of my best friend's brother's bedroom. I had never heard anything like it and thus began a lifelong obsession with electronic music. Now, as I type this thirty-nine years later, I am listening for the first time to Oxygene 3. Electronic music is no longer groundbreaking, it has become very much part of the musical landscape, so it would be disingenuous of me to say that I am experiencing a fourth musical epiphany. However, it does give me a profound feeling of continuity and permanence that this wonderful music has accompanied me so many years and provided me with such pleasure and solace. I have so much for which I should be grateful.

As I was listening to this music, Valerie began to weep because she was watching this on her phone. Indeed, we do have so much for which we should be grateful. The world on the cover of Oxygene 3 has turned about seventy degrees from the cover of Oxygene. Unfortunately, it has barely turned at all in terms of equality and justice for all in that time, I fear.