Jean-Michel Jarre "Les Chants Magnétiques/Magnetic Fields"

Les Chants Magnétiques (English title: Magnetic Fields) is the fifth studio album by French electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre, released on Disques Dreyfus on 22 May 1981. The album was one of the first records to use sampling as a musical element and represents a departure from the sound of Jarre's previous efforts.

The long first track consists of three distinct movements, the slower second movement being heavily laden with sample work. It was also used as the interval signal of a numbers station of the same name.

The album reached #6 in the UK charts and #98 in the U.S. charts.

The album has official titles in both French and English. The French title, Les Chants Magnétiques is a play on words. Literally translated into English this means "Magnetic Songs" or "Magnetic Singing". Spoken aloud however, it sounds as "Les Champs Magnétiques" (literally: "Magnetic Fields"), due to the French words chants (songs or singing) and champs (fields) being homophones. As this is not the case in English, the more straightforward title "Magnetic Fields" was used in English. In the caption for picture 5 on the album's inner sleeve, the word "champs" in "champs magnétiques" is crossed out and the word "chants" is written above it.

Track listing

Side one

1. "Les Chants Magnétiques Part 1" 17:50

Side two

1. "Les Chants Magnétiques Part 2" 3:59
2. "Les Chants Magnétiques Part 3" 4:15
3. "Les Chants Magnétiques Part 4" 6:18
4. "Les Chants Magnétiques Part 5" 3:30