Mike Oldfield appreciation thread

has been one of my favorites since the 1970s

Dellinger wrote: O666 wrote: Mike Oldfield in one of Top 10 musicians (Prog or Not Prog!) in my book. I listened most of his albums and I follow him over 30 years! He always tried to be "Up to Date" in his career. He experienced some of different  musical genres in some of his albums .  There are some musicians that try to "Copy" his 70's style. The latest of them is "Rob Reed". He released 2 "Oldfield 70's Style copy Albums" : "Sanctuary" and "Sanctuary 2". If you love "Ommadawn" and "Tubular Bells" , You must listen to Reed's "Sanctuary 1,2" albums. Yeah, Oldfield has become one of my top artists too... though I would put him in my top 5. However, I still got to get some albums from him, and somehow I don't expect to find anything as special as the best I already found from him.

Dean wrote: I have to admit I always get a bit squirmy when an artists says he's returning to something from his past. (aww, really? Must you?) Sometimes this works okay (Wakeman returning to the Centre of the Earth twice, once fair and once improved) or not bad (Anderson having a second bite of Thick As A Brick) while other times you have to wonder why they bothered (Tango's on several re-recorded albums including Phaedra 2005).  Oldfield's not new to this plundering of the back-catalogue of course having "returned" to Tubby Bells on four separate occasions (one re-recording and three sequels) with mixed results, though it has to be said that Tubby Bells III and The Millennium Bell could have been released with completely different titles and no one would have been any the wiser. Time will tell I suppose but apart from trading on the name of a relatively well known album I don't see why a return to his acoustic era has to be "Return to Ommadawn" specifically.

I agree with this. I would like the new album to be something new, not merely a retread, as good as the original was. We shall find out shortly.

I actually prefer TBII to the original, whilst the third was an interesting take. Millenium Bell is not particularly inspired.

O666 wrote: Dellinger wrote: O666 wrote: Mike Oldfield in one of Top 10 musicians (Prog or Not Prog!) in my book. I listened most of his albums and I follow him over 30 years! He always tried to be "Up to Date" in his career. He experienced some of different  musical genres in some of his albums .  There are some musicians that try to "Copy" his 70's style. The latest of them is "Rob Reed". He released 2 "Oldfield 70's Style copy Albums" : "Sanctuary" and "Sanctuary 2". If you love "Ommadawn" and "Tubular Bells" , You must listen to Reed's "Sanctuary 1,2" albums. Yeah, Oldfield has become one of my top artists too... though I would put him in my top 5. However, I still got to get some albums from him, and somehow I don't expect to find anything as special as the best I already found from him. Hi. Sometimes I found him so Unexpected! For example "Amarok" album after 4-5 Semi-Pop albums or "The songs from Distant Earth" World Music genre album.  Perhaps he have some "Bad" (I prefer to say "Not Good"!) albums  but he is a great musician (IMO). He is my hero!

I have been getting into Oldfield mostly since he already had released all of his albums, except Man on the Rocks, so I have had a fair idea of what to expect from his albums... at least as far as the kind of sound or genre it will have goes, so there's been little surprise for me on that respect. Songs from Distant Earth is, I think, the first album I heard from him, and I do like it a lot... very good as a whole piece of music. And the last one was a nice collection of songs, specially the title song and Nuclear are great, and very different to anything else I have heard from him... even from his 80's song format releases.

I should really delve into his discography more, the only album I've heard deep enough is Tubular Bells.

Mike oldfield have a great Box-Set that released in 1976 : "Boxed . In LP version that released in 1976 , there were 4 LPs : Tubular Bells , Hergest Ridge , Ommadawn and Collaborations . In CD version , there are 3 CDs : TB , HR , Ommadawn without Collaborations! I want to write from Boxed cover : 

Platinum rocks! 

^ I'm glad you agree. I don't know, the studio version has its own charm and the passages obviously work better.

I still have one of these from the 1979 tour of Europe ....

kenethlevine wrote: cool!  was that from the same tour that produced "Exposed"?