Air are a French music duo from Versailles, consisting of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel.
Dunckel grew up listening to both classical music and electronic music, especially Kraftwerk. Next, he took an interest in what he called the "English dark rock" of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division, while being a fan of David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. Brian Eno and Cluster were two of the electronic acts who inspired him the most. He cited among his favorite artists: Maurice Ravel for classical music, François de Roubaix for music soundtracks and Siouxsie and the Banshees for pop music. Dunckel shared with Godin a special liking for the music of Michel Legrand, Philip Glass and Grace Jones.
During his childhood, Godin was fascinated by the Beatles before later discovering the soul of Sly and the Family Stone. The duo were influenced by progressive rock pioneers Pink Floyd.
The Virgin Suicides is a score composed by French electronic music duo Air for the 1999 film of the same name by Sofia Coppola. It was released on 23 February 2000 by Virgin Records. The album was nominated for Best Soundtrack at the 2001 Brit Awards.
Godin and Dunckel have a larger arsenal of instruments here. The bulk of the equipment implemented still seems to be a diverse assortment of analog keyboards, but Air also incorporate those dependable traditional rock instruments, guitar and bass. It's a marked improvement from the synth surplus of their previous material. The band also seems more influenced by the melodic psychedelic rock of the late 60's and early 70's than before.
The French edition of Rolling Stone magazine placed The Virgin Suicides at number 49 on their list of the 100 essential French rock albums. In 2014, NME placed the album at number 11 on their "61 of the Greatest Film Soundtracks Ever" list. In 2019, Pitchfork placed the album at number 4 on their "Top 50 Best Movie Scores of All Time" list.
[ AllMusic Review by John Bush
Two years after the arrival of their debut album, the French twosome Air returned, not with a proper sophomore LP, but with The Virgin Suicides, a full soundtrack to the directing debut of Sofia Coppola.
Only one track, "Playground Love," has vocals, and that comes from an outsider (Gordon Tracks) who sounds more like the Auteurs' Luke Haines than Beth Hirsch, the only real vocalist employed previously. The trademarked Air sound is for the most part unchanged; as on Moon Safari, producers Godin and Dunckel rely on contemplative electronic mood-music in a minor key, heavy on the analog synth and organ yet with plenty of traditional textures (guitar, brass, strings, live-sounding drums) in keeping with lounge music and space-pop from the 1960s and '70s.
And though all the music here is as meticulously detailed as the tracks on Moon Safari, the soundtrack cultivates an atmosphere more in league with traditional scoring -- instead of focusing on pop songs in an electronic context, Air constructed these tracks as mere soundbytes, simple themes with little embellishment on the basic ideas. Of course, that's perfectly in keeping with the secondary role soundtracks should play to truly serve the movies for which they're composed.
Listeners eager for a second dose of the exquisite electronic pop found on Moon Safari will be pleased with much of The Virgin Suicides, but will probably have to wait until Air's proper follow-up to find more evidence of their greatness.]
On 3 June 2010, Air performed the full score with the band Hot Rats (with members of Supergrass) at the Cité de la Musique in Paris.
AIR – Original Motion Picture Score For The Virgin Suicides
Genre: Electronic, Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Rock
Year: 2000
Air discography
Moon Safari (1998)
10 000 Hz Legend (2001)
Talkie Walkie (2004)
Pocket Symphony (2007)
Love 2 (2009)
Le Voyage Dans La Lune (2012)
Soundtrack albums:
The Virgin Suicides (2000)
Music for Museum (2014)
Extended plays:
Premiers Symptômes (1997)
Collaborative albums:
City Reading (Tre Storie Western) (2003)
Mix and remix albums:
Everybody Hertz (2002)
Late Night Tales (2006)
Compilation albums:
Twentyears (2016)
TRACKS
01. Playground Love 3:32
02. Clouds Up 1:30
03. Bathroom Girl 2:25
04. Cemetary Party 2:36
05. Dark Messages 2:28
06. The Word 'Hurricane' 2:33
07. Dirty Trip 6:12
08. Highschool Lover (theme from The Virgin Suicides) 2:42
09. Afternoon Sister 2:24
10. Ghost Song 2:16
11. Empty House 2:58
12. Dead Bodies 2:59
13. Suicide Underground 5:52
Gordon Tracks[a] – vocals, drums (track 1)
Hugo Ferran – saxophone (track 1)
Brian Reitzell – drums (tracks 3, 6, 7, 12, 13)
Pascal Garnon – drum recording
Stéphane "Alf" Briat – mixing
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