After having taken piano lessons, Vangelis began his professional musical career working with several popular bands of the 1960s such as the Forminx and Aphrodite's Child, with the latter's album 666 going on to be recognized as a psychedelic classic. Throughout the 1970s, Vangelis composed music scores for several animal documentaries, including L'Apocalypse des Animaux, La Fête sauvage and Opéra sauvage; the success of these scores brought him into the film scoring mainstream. In the early 1980s, Vangelis formed a musical partnership with Jon Anderson, the lead singer of progressive rock band Yes, and the duo went on to release several albums together as Jon & Vangelis.
In 1981, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The soundtrack's single, the film's "Titles" theme, also reached the top of the American Billboard Hot 100 chart and was used as the background music at the London 2012 Olympics winners' medal presentation ceremonies. Vangelis also received acclaim for his synthesizer-based soundtrack for the 1982 film Blade Runner.
Having had a career in music spanning over 70 years and having composed and performed more than 50 albums, Vangelis is considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of electronic music.
Vangelis was born 29 March 1943, in Agria, near Volos, Greece. Largely a self-taught musician, he reportedly began composing at the age of three. His earliest memory is "playing piano, some percussion and whatever else that was available that made a noise. Right from the start, I was only interested in playing my own music". He refused to take traditional piano lessons, and throughout his career did not have substantial knowledge of reading or writing musical notation. When he was six, Vangelis's parents enrolled him at a specialist music school in Athens. He recalls "I was lucky not to go because music schools close doors rather than open them". He studied painting, an art he still practices, at the Athens School of Fine Arts.
In 1989 received Max Steiner Award. France made Vangelis a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1992 and promoted to Commander in 2017, as well Chevalier de la Legion d’ Honneur in 2001. In 1993 received music award Apollo by Friends of the Athens National Opera Society. In 1995, Vangelis had a minor planet named after him (6354 Vangelis) by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; the name was proposed by the MPC's co-director, Gareth V. Williams, rather than by the object's original discoverer, Eugène Joseph Delporte, who died in 1955, long before the 1934 discovery could be confirmed by observations made in 1990. In 1996 and 1997 was awarded at World Music Awards.
NASA conferred their Public Service Medal to Vangelis in 2003. The award is the highest honour the space agency presents to an individual not involved with the American government. Five years later, in 2008, the board of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens voted to make Vangelis an Honorary Doctor, making him Professor Emeritus at their Faculty of Primary Education. In June 2008, the American Hellenic Institute honoured Vangelis with an AHI Hellenic Heritage Achievement Award for his "exceptional artistic achievements" as a pioneer in electronic music and for his lifelong dedication to the promotion of Hellenism through the arts. On 16 September 2013, he received the honour of appearing on the Greek 80 cent postage stamp, as part of a series of six distinguished living personalities of the Greek Diaspora.
Blade Runner
Vangelis Lyrics
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Pull back
Wait a minute, go right
Stop
Enhance 57, 19
Track 45 left
Stop
Gimme a hard-copy right there
The lyrics to Vangelis's song Main Titles were actually taken from a dialogue sequence in the 1982 dystopian science fiction film Blade Runner. The lines were spoken by the character Rick Deckard, who is a retired blade runner, a type of police officer tasked with hunting down and "retiring" artificial beings known as replicants. In the scene, Deckard is analyzing a photograph of a replicant and using futuristic technology to zoom in and enhance it, giving him clues about its location.
The lyrics themselves reflect the process of analyzing an image and navigating through a digital interface, with commands like "enhance" and "pull back" signaling the use of computer software to manipulate the image. The repetition of the phrase "stop" highlights the precision and control needed to carry out this task. The final line, "gimme a hard-copy right there," indicates that Deckard wants a physical print-out of the enhanced image.
Line by Line Meaning
Enhance 34 to 46
Zoom in on areas between 34 and 46 for closer inspection.
Pull back
Zoom out and widen the field of view.
Wait a minute, go right
Pause for a moment, then move the focus to the right.
Stop
Halt any further movements or changes.
Enhance 57, 19
Zoom in on areas 57 and 19 for closer inspection.
Track 45 left
Move the focus to the left while keeping the same level of zoom.
Stop
Halt any further movements or changes.
Enhance 15 to 23
Zoom in on areas between 15 and 23 for closer inspection.
Gimme a hard-copy right there
Produce a physical print of the current view at this location.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: EVANGELOS PAPATHANASSIOU
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind