Mike Oldfield appreciation thread

Kingsnake wrote: I'm putting some Mike Oldfield on my smartphone this week. I feel the urge for some 80's poppie stuff by the maestro.

SteveG wrote: I just listened to Ommadawn for the first time in a few years. This album still blows me away, and I still think it's Oldfield's best.

I am a huge Mike Oldfield fan.  I have a few.

TheLionOfPrague wrote: Ommadawn is his finest album. If it's anywhere near as good as it it'll be worth it.

Dellinger wrote: I had read about that comparison between Amarok and Ommadawn (even from Oldfield himself, I think), and the love Amarok gets... yet it didn't really work so well for me. It's got lots of good music, but I just couldn't enjoy the one song album thing... it's just not practical, it's not always that one has the time to listen to the whole thing in one sitting. Plus, it's sort of disjointed, and before one has time to enjoy a musical passage it's already changing, and not always in a good way. However, I do love the "Africa 1" section, one of the most beatiful things he has recorded.

There is a reason why Amarok is like that. Mike Oldfield was upset (to say the least) with his record label, or more so at head of Virgin Records, Richard Branson. The length and structure of the track made it difficult for Virgin to produce any portion that would be radio friendly. I really really enjoy Amarok, but I do only play it when I have the time to listen to it in its entirety, for it's a journey that one takes from start to finish. It can't be compartmentalized or sectioned off, for even the sublime Arfrica I-III suite sounds off when played out of context.

There is however, a youtube video of this pianist (Gus Fogel) and a bassist that play Amarok as close for note to note as one could get and, other that less that optimal recording, is a great listen if you want a more "straightforward" Amarok.

Although I have some of his stuff that is really good he beat the hell out of the Tubular Bells concept  to the piont where I gave up on him for a while. When Songs Of Distant Earth came out I thought wow, a science fiction/interstellar space exploration theme based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke but he has to drag that Tubular Bells theme into it ( Tubular World ). When it came out in '94 his section was located in the new age section in a record store in my hometown of Montreal so that just demonstrates how confused people are over how to categorise him. I happen to have one of those picture discs of Tubular Bells that came out in '78. The mix sounds a bit different if you actually play it because it was a stereo remix of the quad remix if that makes any sense. I had an audiophile friend who explained it to me years ago. My favourite album by him has to be Crises. I played the crap out of it back in the 80s at one point.

Edited by Kepler62 - August 07 2017 at 04:31