TUBULAR BELLS

It might be mega-popular, but that doesn't mean that Tubular Bells isn't also an incredibly good album. Mike Oldfield cut his prog teeth working in Kevin Ayers' The Whole World, and there's the occasional echo of Kevin's low-jazz, high-whimsy approach to the Canterbury scene here, but what makes Tubular Bells such a wonderful album is the way it explores such a broad and diverse musical territory in its running time - including entire regions which were more or less invented by Oldfield in composing this album.

The album deserves credit for creating greater commercial exposure for idea of album-length prog rock compositions than had ever previously been attained. The narration of Vivian Stanshall is probably many listeners' only experience of the work of said musical eccentric; similarly, Tubular Bells has brought a Canterbury-tinted prog aesthetic to the attention of an extraordinary number of people. If I had to pick one album to convince a sceptical listener of the power and possibilities of progressive music, I'd be sorely tempted to pick this one.