ELEMENTS: 1973-1991

4 CD's in a ridiculously big box - gosh, I have always hated big boxes wasting space... and the way the CD leaflets tend to be as plain and boring as possible in these boxes. If the track listings would be included in the booklet also, that wouldn't matter much, but honestly: I would never ever give a thought of buying a large box set of any artist.

Anyway, I just borrowed this in order to make my own 2-CD Oldfield compilation. I thought this 4-CD thing would be enough for it, but no. Had to get also The Complete Mike Oldfield to finish my task. I'm rather choosy, you see. First, as I expected, the late 80's material presented on the fourth disc was mostly awful. I have never listened to Earth Moving album (I guess), but it seems to be an absolute low mark in Oldfield's career. VERY commercial and unpersonal 80's pop! Nor has 'Islands' with Bonnie Tyler's pretentiously raspy vocals stood the test of time.

I think the period from Platinum (1979) to Discovery (1984) is also quite poorly represented here. For example, who would enjoy an instrumental version of Tricks of the Light!?? A pity that 'The Lake' (the only great track on Discovery) isn't included. 'Crises' epic is represented by a 5½-minute edit which just happens to include its worst moments. As I say on my Complete M. O. review, its Live Side is absolutely superior to the studio versions of 'Platinum', 'Sheba' and 'Mount Teidi'.

On the positive side, I really enjoy Ommadawn part One in its entire, Incantations Part Two and even some tracks I had never heard before, such as 'Firts Excursion' and 'Argiers'. But on the whole, The Complete Mike Oldfield with its 2 CD's made much better impression on me 20 years ago, and still does.