Trivia / Oxygène

• Breakthrough Hit: Both the album and "Oxygène 4" catapulted Jarre into international stardom.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Oxygène more than anything else makes Jarre's back catalog just this. It still sells well enough to render sales figures obsolete every few years.
• Channel Hop: This album saw Jarre move over to Motors Records, the third Dreyfus-owned label he would be on. The deal would last all of one album before Jarre moved again to Francis Dreyfus' eponymous label.
• Completely Different Title:The Japanese title for "Oxygène" is 幻想惑星, "Fantasy Planet".
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Whenever clueless mass media claim that a Moog can be heard on Oxygène, or that the album was made entirely with Moog synthesizers. Jarre didn't own any kind of Moog before the mid-1980s (Zoolook). The nostalgic idea that Oxygène was entirely made with analog synths is nonsense, too, by the way: Key sounds come from the RMI Harmonic Synthesizer and the RMI Keyboard Computer, both of which use digital oscillators.
• Late Export for You: Officially, Oxygène wasn't available outside of France until 1977. The reason why it was eventually released world-wide may have been the many record dealerships who took it upon themselves to import the album from France. This is why the imported 1976 Disques Motors pressing is more common in Germany than the German 1977 PolyGram pressing.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: None of these gave Oxygène itself an expanded track list.
  • The Original Master Recording edition in gold.
  • The Complete Oxygène, a limited 2-CD set together with an expanded Oxygène 7-13.
  • The remake Oxygène – New Master Recording was also available with a DVD containing the live performance Oxygène – Live In Your Living-Room (which does have additional material, namely the three "Variation" parts).
• Milestone Celebration: Oxygène's release anniversaries were celebrated four times, but only once in time.
  • In 1987, Disques Dreyfus put out a self-titled tenth anniversary Boxed Set containing every Jarre album from this one to Rendez-Vous (even though the actual decennial was in 1986). It was later reissued in 1989 as Les Années Laser, adding in Revolutions and Jarre Live.
  • Oxygène 7-13 (20th anniversary) was delayed by several months way into 1997.
  • Oxygène – New Master Recording (30th anniversary) brought so much extra effort with it, including the production of Oxygène – Live In Your Living-Room, that it was delayed beyond one year.
  • Oxygène 3 (40th anniversary) came out exactly 40 years after the first album.
• Referenced by...: Limmy's Show prominently uses snippets from the album as the soundtrack to the Adventure Call sketches.

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