TUBULAR BELLS

Oldfield's debut blew me away back when I first heard it. While already being familiar with his "Crises" album from 1983, I picked up this one just after I started collecting CD's when I was younger and it didn't leave my CD player until several weeks after. It was mesmerising at that time and re-visiting it now it still is. Starting off with it's instantly recognizable intro, the music goes through a myriad of different impressions, moods and emotions, constantly progressing into a sort of climax in the end and it never get's uninteresting. This is partly due to the eclectic instrumentation (all performed by a 19 year old Oldfield!) but mostly because of the excellent structure of the whole thing. This album sold extremely well when it was released in 1973, boosting both Oldfield's career and giving Virgin Records a name (sadly, other Virgin performers like Henry Cow, Gong and Faust didn't get the same attention because of the sucess..)

An extremely influential album, both in prog and music in general, therefore five stars.