Taurus I, II, or III

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 tanis573 wrote:

Taurus II, obviously.  It's one of my favorite tracks from Oldfield.  Taurus I isn't far behind, and I can't believe it hasn't got any votes yet.

Taurus III has some beautiful guitar work in it, but it's ruined by that annoyingly chaotic strumming part in the middle and the end.  I usually skip the song because of that.

Now that I think about it, that seems to be a running theme in Mike Oldfield's music.  He writes some really beautiful and ethereal songs, but always seems to ruin them with something really annoying.  Here are some examples:

Tubular Bells Part One: the ending with the bass riff goes on for far too long
Tubular Bells Part Two: the caveman part

Hergest Ridge Part One: nothing wrong with the original mix, but in the new remastered version there is an annoying guitar strumming that comes in at about 14 minutes into the song and really distracts from the sweet bass riff he's playing in the background
Hergest Ridge Part Two: 9 minutes into the song there's a piece that sounds like it comes straight from a Japanese anime

Ommadawn Part Two: the long and depressing intro

Incantations Part Four: the first two minutes of this song is my favorite part of Incantations, but of course it is ruined by the next section with the xylophones that goes on way too long.

Amarok: the first six minutes of the song is kind of annoying.

Its funny you mention the intro to Ommadawn Part Two as being 'long and depressing' as I just posted it on the thread about prog song intro's as being one of my favourites. To me its pure genius. I always imagine a fog gradually clearing to leave beautifull blue sky which I suspect is how Oldfield invisaged it. 

The bit you mention on Hergest Ridge Part Two was Oldfield's excursion into a Philip Glass style minimalistic approach.(although the inspiration may have come from his friend David Bedford who was an avante garde composer). From an artistic point of view it was a very bold statement. Says to me that there is no real retreat from all the madness. Eventually it will hunt you down and get you. Oldfield has had plenty of demons over the years to deal with so it seems quite poignant in some respects and fits the bill. 

Edited by richardh - February 11 2011 at 17:31

Poll Question: Which of Oldfield's Taurus' do you prefer?
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
Taurus I (QE2)	1	[10.00%]
Taurus II (Five Miles Out)	8	[80.00%]
Taurus 3 (Crisis)	1	[10.00%]
This topic is closed, no new votes accepted