Musique pour Supermarché/Music for Supermarkets

The sixth studio album by Jean-Michel Jarre, Musique pour Supermarché/Music for Supermarkets instantly achieved notoriety upon release for its bizarre, unconventional, and hugely uncommercial (arguably anti-commercial) distribution method. Rather than giving the album a general release, Jarre pressed and auctioned off just one LP copy of the album, which was purchased by an M. Gerard for the price of 69,000 francs. Concurrently, Jarre broadcast the entire album over the radio, encouraging listeners to “pirate me!” Afterwards, Jarre publicly destroyed the album’s master tapes and the vinyl pressing plates, thus ensuring that the auctioned-off record was the only legitimate copy available.

Jarre’s odd choice of release method was inspired by the circumstances of its creation: the album was commissioned as a soundtrack for the Orrimbe show art exhibition (which was themed around supermarkets, hence the album title), leading Jarre to become interested in treating the music as a fine art piece as well.

As Gerard never made the audio from his copy of the album publicly available, bootleggers instead took to sourcing the music from lower-quality home tapes of the radio broadcast, fulfilling Jarre’s request to keep the album listenable through piracy. That said, despite the master tapes and pressing plates' public destruction, Jarre still possesses the original multitrack tapes for the album, and consequently reused elements of them on both Zoolook and Rendez-vous later in the decade. Jarre would also include a demo version of “Musique pour Supermarché Part I” on the Planet Jarre retrospective compilation.