The news today regards the passing of Vangelis on Tuesday….
Soundtrack of my life, pretty much, certainly for the past 40+ years. His Nemo era, Heaven and Hell, China, his Jon & Vangelis albums, See You Later, Soil Festivities, Mask, Rapsodies... and of course, his Blade Runner soundtrack. Its ironic, that I was working this afternoon in my back room (yep, still working from home, over two years now) and was listening to Vangelis’ The City album when I learned the news of his passing. I listen to all kinds of stuff, but I always return to Vangelis eventually.
I can’t help it: if its raining, I tend to listen to Movement One from his Soil Festivities album.
Himalaya, the track from his China album, is my personal favourite; I’ve adored that piece of music since I first heard it used during end titles of an episode of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos tv series. I had it recorded off-air onto audio cassette and played it so often, while not knowing what the piece was, only that I loved it, and it was unlike anything else I’d heard. In those pre-internet days, it was tricky tracking music down, so you cannot imagine my joy when my friend Andy got a hold of a copy of China and was playing it, and Himalaya came on.
Naturally I’ve listened to his Blade Runner score far too many times to be considered healthy. I sometimes wonder if I would love Blade Runner half as much as I do if it was scored by someone else: the mix between the sound effects and Vangelis’ synths (that glorious Yamaha CS-80!) is so perfect you can’t always tell where the music ends and the sound effects take over. I suppose one could consider the film one long Vangelis pop video, or an arthouse installation for Vangelis’ electronic wizardry.
To be fair, there was always a love/hate thing though regards Vangelis. I think most of his fans will understand this. Vangelis always seemed to be very private, distant. A musical genius and remarkably prolific, it was said he recorded music constantly, and that the majority of it would never be heard by his fans. Following his Chariots of Fire success and the wealth it gave him, the gaps between his album releases would sometime stretch into years. We’d hear his succeeding scores for films and be frustrated by his refusal to release those scores on album (Bitter Moon, The Bounty etc) and indeed even taking twelve years to release his magnum opus, the Blade Runner soundtrack, a score he sometimes seemed to hold some resentment towards: an album was supposed to be released back in 1982 (the film famously had a Polydor album referenced in the end credits which I searched for in record stores for months like some damned fool) but Vangelis had cancelled it as if on a whim, or perhaps because of an argument with somebody connected with the films production (we never really found out why, and perhaps will never know, rumours abounded for years- ego, money… hey, the music business he hated but made a fortune from).
One thing is certain. There was no-one quite like Vangelis. I actually often considered him akin to Prince. Both wildly talented, hugely prolific, incredibly contrary. We will never seer the like again, I’m sure.
Vangelis was 79. Same age as my dad. Vangelis passed away on the eve of my dad’s funeral. This has been some week.