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50 free Jean-Michel Jarre trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Jean-Michel Jarre trivia quiz covers the French electronic pioneer from his Lyon childhood and Pierre Schaeffer's musique concrète to Versailles in 2023. It goes through the albums — Oxygène and its skull-in-the-Earth cover, Équinoxe, Les Chants Magnétiques and the Fairlight, the one-copy Music for Supermarkets, Zoolook's sampled voices, Chronologie, Aero and the Electronica collaborations — and the gear, from his first EMS VCS 3 to the laser harp. Then it takes in the giant concerts that made him famous: the Place de la Concorde in 1979, the five shows in China, Houston and the Challenger tragedy, Destination Docklands on barges, La Défense, Moscow's 3.5 million and the pyramids at Giza, plus the family stories, the Oscar-winning father and the actress wives. About a third of the questions are easy for any fan; the rest are for people who own the Concerts in China on vinyl. Our synth-pop and electronic music pages carry on from here. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's articles on Jarre and his albums and the interviews they cite, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which French city was Jean-Michel Jarre born and raised?
Lyon
He spent half of each year at his grandparents' flat above the Cours de Verdun, watching street performers below.
Q 02Jarre's father, Maurice, was a film composer who won three Oscars for scores to films by which director?
David Lean
Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India; the parents separated when Jean-Michel was five and he did not see his father again until 18.
Q 03Jarre's mother, Francette Pejot, had done what during the Second World War?
Served in the Resistance and survived a camp
She later sold antiques at the Saint-Ouen flea market and took him to a Paris jazz club run by a friend from her resistance days.
Q 04Which musique concrète pioneer, whose Groupe de Recherches Musicales Jarre joined in 1969, most influenced him?
Pierre Schaeffer
There he met the Moog modular synthesiser and also spent time at Stockhausen's studio in Cologne.
Q 05Which French painter's textured canvases made Jarre think he could 'act as a painter with frequencies'?
Pierre Soulages
Jarre also sold his own paintings as a young man at a Lyon gallery.
Q 06What was Jarre's first synthesiser, installed in a makeshift studio in his kitchen?
An EMS VCS 3
It sat beside an EMS Synthi AKS, both wired to Revox tape machines, in his flat on the Rue de la Trémoille.
Q 07What was Jarre's 1976 breakthrough album, recorded at home and selling about 18 million copies?
Oxygène
Several labels turned it down before Francis Dreyfus of Disques Motors took it; the first 50,000 were pushed through hi-fi shops and discos.
Q 08The Oxygène cover art, a skull inside a peeling Earth, was adapted from a watercolour by which painter?
Michel Granger
The 30 by 40 cm original was itself titled Oxygène.
Q 09Which two sections of Oxygène were released as singles?
II and IV
Part IV became his signature piece and one of the most recognisable synth melodies ever recorded.
Q 10What was the follow-up album to Oxygène, released in 1978?
Équinoxe
It sold well but had less impact, until the 1979 Concorde concert sent both albums back up the charts.
Q 11Jarre's record-setting free concert on Bastille Day 1979 was staged at which Paris landmark?
The Concorde
More than a million people watched the 40-minute show of light, projections and fireworks; it became his blueprint.
Q 12Jarre was the first Western musician officially invited to perform in which country, in 1981?
China
Two concerts in Beijing and three in Shanghai; officials cut power to surrounding districts to run the first show.
Q 13Why did about half the audience leave Jarre's first Beijing concert before the end?
The city's buses stopped running at ten
Q 21Jarre's 1988 concert Destination Docklands was staged at which east London site?
The Royal Victoria Dock
Newham council dithered until the month of the show; the stage floated on four barges and Hank Marvin guested in awful weather.
Q 22Which guitarist appeared as a guest at Destination Docklands?
Hank Marvin
About 200,000 watched from the site with thousands more in surrounding streets and parks.
Q 23Jarre's 1990 album En Attendant Cousteau paid tribute to a French figure in which field?
Oceanography
That Bastille Day he played La Défense to about two million people, another world record.
For the second night, Jarre's team bought tickets and handed them to children on the street.
Q 14Which signature Jarre instrument, played by breaking light beams, featured on the China concerts album?
The laser harp
The 1982 double LP The Concerts in China documented the tour.
Q 15Which new digital sampling instrument did Jarre pioneer on 1981's Les Chants Magnétiques?
The Fairlight CMI
By then Oxygène and Équinoxe had sold about 6 million between them; the new album shifted 200,000 in France in two months.
Q 16What did Jarre do with the master tapes of his 1983 album Musique pour Supermarché?
Destroyed them after auctioning a single copy
One LP was pressed and auctioned; the music was then broadcast once on Radio Luxembourg with Jarre urging listeners to tape it.
Q 17Jarre's 1984 album Zoolook was built around what kind of sampled material?
Human voices in many languages
He recorded fragments of speech from around the world and edited them on the Fairlight; Laurie Anderson guested after he read about her in The Village Voice.
Q 18Jarre's 1986 Houston concert marked Texas's 150th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of what?
NASA's Johnson Space Center
NASA asked him to build the anniversary into the show, and the audience of over 1.5 million broke his own 1979 record.
Q 19Which Challenger astronaut was to have played saxophone on 'Rendez-Vous VI' from orbit?
Ronald McNair
The piece was renamed 'Ron's Piece'; his friend Kirk Whalum played it live in Houston and Lyon.
Q 20Which astronaut urged Jarre to go ahead with the Houston show in memory of the Challenger crew?
Bruce McCandless II
Consideration had been given to cancelling the concert altogether.
Q 24Roughly how many people attended Jarre's 1990 Bastille Day concert at La Défense?
About 2,000,000
It beat his own Houston record; Moscow in 1997 would top even that.
Q 25Jarre's 1997 Russian concert, reputedly attended by about 3.5 million, marked what anniversary?
Moscow's 850th birthday
It was staged at Moscow State University and set his fourth outdoor-audience world record.
Q 26Where did Jarre stage The Twelve Dreams of the Sun on New Year's Eve 1999?
The Egyptian desert near Giza
It previewed his 2000 album Métamorphoses.
Q 27Which actress was Jarre's second wife, whom he met at a dinner party in Saint-Tropez in 1976?
Charlotte Rampling
They separated in 1996 and divorced in 2002; he later married Anne Parillaud and dated Gong Li.
Q 28Jarre's 1993 album Chronologie was toured across the continent in 16 shows under what name?
Europe in Concert
He called the Moog 'the Stradivarius of electronic music' and mixed it with 90s dance beats on the record.
Q 29Which Danish percussion duo featured on the track 'Aero'?
Safri Duo
The 2004 album Aero came with a DVD showing Anne Parillaud's eyes as she listened.
Q 30Which whistleblower's voice appears on the track 'Exit' on Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise?
Edward Snowden
The album's collaborators included Pet Shop Boys, Hans Zimmer, Yello and Gary Numan.