i voted for "Aja".

I have voted for Aja before, but in the duel with Ommadawn it's an easy choice: I much prefer Ommadawn, one of my favorite Oldfield albums. 

M Oldfield

Oldfield blows away all things Steely Dan.

TGM: Orb wrote: OK, relistening to Aja -  I don't hate it, the execution is generally excellent. The vocals/lyrics are somewhere between beige and revolting at any given moment. There's the occasional transcendental moment stirred in among the general prissiness of it all.

Edited by kenethlevine - September 09 2015 at 15:38

Relistening to Ommadawn... I'd forgotten just how unusual and beautiful this opening is. His timing and feel on the solos is always compelling stuff and it's a little less THIS or THAT genre at any given moment than Tubular Bells is. Falls apart a tiny bit when the ensemble comes in, some of the instrumentation is really unusually integrated and nice to have, other bits are stuff Floyd was doing around the same time. The melancholic brass reminds me a little of Roy Harper's colliery band on When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease (also the same year, off an album recorded with Bill Bruford and Chris Spedding among others).

That descending bit near the start of the second side feels like it goes on forever. I feel some of the thing with Oldfield is that taking anything out and criticising it in particular feels irrelevant but honest to god some of the parts are much weaker than the whole. His acoustic playing is immaculate and more in line with what British folk musicians of the 60s and early 70s were doing, which is refreshing given 90% of prog acoustic guitar is either classical or sleepytime rock stuff for children.

The harp/whistle section is beautiful. Horseback has grown on me a lot melodically but the Moody Blues-y spoken word is so flat in the delivery it's professionally offensive to me. I suppose the aspiration was to sound a bit like the narrator of one of the many psychedelic British children's TV things of the time. I hate children's choruses. I f**king hated it on Another Brick In The Wall. I f**king hated it on Annie. I f**king hate it here. Shame it ends on such a pointed flop.

Anyway, my verdict's for Ommadawn. I think it's somewhat shy of a masterpiece but there's a huge amount of heart there and a lot of style/melodic ideas/instrumentation we very rarely see in the narrow church of PRAWG RAWK. Not as much so as the transcendental Si On Avait Besoin D'Une Cinquieme Saison that got beaten out by some piece of sh*t album last round but there you go.

TGM: Orb wrote: Relistening to Ommadawn... I'd forgotten just how unusual and beautiful this opening is. His timing and feel on the solos is always compelling stuff and it's a little less THIS or THAT genre at any given moment than Tubular Bells is. Falls apart a tiny bit when the ensemble comes in, some of the instrumentation is really unusually integrated and nice to have, other bits are stuff Floyd was doing around the same time. The melancholic brass reminds me a little of Roy Harper's colliery band on When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease (also the same year, off an album recorded with Bill Bruford and Chris Spedding among others). That descending bit near the start of the second side feels like it goes on forever. I feel some of the thing with Oldfield is that taking anything out and criticising it in particular feels irrelevant but honest to god some of the parts are much weaker than the whole. His acoustic playing is immaculate and more in line with what British folk musicians of the 60s and early 70s were doing, which is refreshing given 90% of prog acoustic guitar is either classical or sleepytime rock stuff for children. The harp/whistle section is beautiful. Horseback has grown on me a lot melodically but the Moody Blues-y spoken word is so flat in the delivery it's professionally offensive to me. I suppose the aspiration was to sound a bit like the narrator of one of the many psychedelic British children's TV things of the time. I hate children's choruses. I f**king hated it on Another Brick In The Wall. I f**king hated it on Annie. I f**king hate it here. Shame it ends on such a pointed flop. Anyway, my verdict's for Ommadawn. I think it's somewhat shy of a masterpiece but there's a huge amount of heart there and a lot of style/melodic ideas/instrumentation we very rarely see in the narrow church of PRAWG RAWK. Not as much so as the transcendental Si On Avait Besoin D'Une Cinquieme Saison that got beaten out by some piece of sh*t album last round but there you go.

"Roy Harper's colliery band on When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease (also the same year, off an album recorded with Bill Bruford and Chris Spedding among others)."

    Love it, always have.

Ref Harmonium .... also clapping. An album I discovered through the polls and am thoroughly enjoying.

Otoh ... while I tend to agree with you re the sprogs, Oldfields flat delivery on Horseback is for me a plus. It suits the image of a dry Englishman out in the country. Something with more pizzazz to it would have ruined it for me.

I think I mentioned earlier that I saw Oldfield do Ommadawn (Pt 1) live and it was way better than I had hoped.

Aja.

We have that John G. Perry album, and need to spin it more often. It is, indeed, very good, and rather unique.