MIKE OLDFIELD - BOXED

If you want the best of Mike Oldfield in one go, you can do no better than buying this set, which is far preferable to the more expensive ELEMENTS, for the following reasons:

1. Oldfield's most original work (his first three albums) is all here, almost in its entirety. (As far as I know, only "On Horseback", from OMMADAWN, is left off - definitely no great loss.)

2. As extras, you get some real goodies. Most notably, there are several fascinating excerpts from albums Oldfield recorded with the British composer David Bedford (who used to play alongside Oldfield in Kevin Ayers' band). I've never heard Bedford's own albums, but judging from the fragments included here, they are magnificent attempts to fuse electric guitar with symphony orchestra. "First Excursion", for example, sounds like the brilliant Norwegian guitarist Terje Rypdal at his most lyrical.

3. True, Oldfield's pop hits from the 1980s (e.g. "Moonlight Shadow" and "To France") are absent from BOXED, while ELEMENTS includes them, but on ELEMENTS you'll also have to put up with at least two discs' worth of third-rate material! (Moreover, ELEMENTS only contains a tiny snippet from AMAROK, a highly entertaining one-hour suite that you REALLY ought to hear from A to Z.)