THE ORCHESTRAL TUBULAR BELLS

No no no. I understand why MIKE OLDFIELD might have wanted this made, and I can certainly see why Virgin would have been all for it. But there are many reasons why this was a bad idea, the most prominent being the poor musical result. The original 'Tubular Bells' was varied and vibrant, introducing a new concept and sound to popular music. Each one of those things, everything that made 'Tubular Bells' remarkable, is lost when setting the score for an orchestra - despite the undoubted talents of DAVID BEDFORD and the orchestra. In the end, the most significant side effect of this effort was to further dilute the MIKE OLDFIELD brand.

Listening to this is a bit like eating artificial cream when the real thing is available. Given that 'Tubular Bells' isn't harmful to your health, why would you bother listening to this ill-advised reinterpretation?

Followed by the even more pointless 'Orchestral Hergest Ridge', which I have heard, though it was not released commercially - mostly, I think, because of the lack of success experienced by this experiment.