TUBULAR BELLS

Some love it and some don't, some find it overrated and others couldn't live without it, but an essential point is often missed : "Tubular Bells" is a monument, a genuine turning point in the history of music. Where would Richard Branson and the whole Virgin empire, including the space travel projects, be now if, on a fine morning of 1972, Oldfield hadn't seen studio workers move out the rented instruments used by John Cale, and among them the most improbable and rarely seen of all symphonic ones? Yes, Oldfield was a genius then, the first one to make a full use of the 16-track recording technology, or rather the first one to realize that it meant he could dispense with tiresome bandmates and do it all by himself. "Tubular Bells" is essentially the result of days and days of musical onanism, fuelled by LSD and Oldfield's almost permanent state of mental depression. Fiddling with tape speed, hiring the studio staff (including the cook!) when he suddenly needed a male choir, grabbing a passing Viv Stanshall to have him voicing the megalomaniac "hey guys, listen how I can play all those instruments" Part 1 ending piece, all of this is the stuff of legend. Of course Mike Oldfield was a genius, and "Tubular Bells" his monument, his Leonardo's "Mona Lisa", his Rodin's "The Thinker". You don't wonder if "Mona Lisa" is a good or beautiful work of art, you just go to the Louvre and stare at it. All the same, don't wonder if "Tubular Bells" is a good album, just go get a copy and listen to it. Everyone should do it, because it's history.