TUBULAR BELLS

Tubular Bells was an innovative and wonderful experiment at the time of its release. Nobody before had ever utilized such a clever use of multitracking and instrument playing by one person before.

But does that make this good music? Not really.

Sure, everyone's familiar with the all-too-eerie beggining of Pt. 1, which is an excellent theme by the way, but it repeats itself all too much. And in an attempt to be symphonic in structure and composition, Mike Oldfield goes on too many tangents at once. He feels that he has to build the piece incredibly slowly, and utilize an instrument only once until the outro when everything comes together for even more repetition.

Pt. 2 doesn't fare much better. It is far more repetitive, and the 'piltdown man' vocals that Oldfield uses midway through the track don't improve the song at all, and are in fact a failed immature experiment. The ending is somewhat neat, in a rapid accelerando of 'Sailor's hornpipe'.

This album is a milestone in terms of how it was made and the experiments made on it. Musically, however, it doesn't fare very well. Prog fans may be eager to get it for the innovation found on Tubular Bells, but they should know what they are getting themselves into.