b o b

This is another album I picked up after seeing several people praising it on rec.music.progressive. It's a decent album, but I'm not sure if it deserves the "classic" status that has grown up around it. The opening musical pattern is probably the most instantly recognizable riff of prog rock, but seems to drag on for too long. The rest of the disc has its moments (I like the part where different instruments are named as they are added to the mix, one by one), but in general the whole thing kind of goes by without leaving much of an impression on me. All in all, the album has grown on me a little since I first bought it, but I don't think it's ever going to be one of my favorites. review by Bob Eichler — 6-21-00 —

c o n r a d

Tubular Bells is Mike Oldfield's Citizen Kane. While some people may prefer one or two of his later works, none of these have ever received the widespread acclaim of his debut effort. Indeed, it's an album Oldfield has found himself returning to again and again, with The Orchestral Tubular Bells, Tubular Bells II, Tubular Bells III, The Millenium Bell and (wait for it) The Best of Tubular Bells. Although this album technically has only two tracks, each taking up one side of a vinyl record, each track is really a series of different pieces tacked on one after the other. The joins are all rather smooth though, mostly owing to the sparse nature of the pieces. The almost minimalist nature of the music is exemplified by the music seventeen minutes into track one. A bass guitar plays a simple riff with a subtle organ backing. The chord sequence, which resembles a twelve bar blues pattern but isn't, is repeated for two and a half minutes with just these two instruments. We are then informed of the introduction of a grand piano by a voice that's perfectly modulated for radio. The piano introduces us to the tune and more instruments are added one on top of the other each being announced by the same voice. The piece climaxes with the introduction of the tubular bells, and there you have it. Oldfield's Bolero. Tubular Bells is progressive rock starting to go New Age, but avoiding the later pitfalls of the New Age genre. The musical themes are strong and thoroughly explored. This album is a necessity for the prog rock fan, unless you get bored easily. review by Conrad Leviston — 3-21-03 —

s e a n

This was the release that launched the Virgin label as well as Oldfield's career. As can be expected, the music lives up to the impact it had. The opening theme will be familliar to those who have seen The Exorcist, as it was used as the soundtrack for said movie. It is a theme both simple and complex, with minimal themes played together on piano and organ to produce a polyrhythmic effect. The track doesn't stay in this creepy mood, though, moving through Oldfield's usual alternations of pastoral simplicity, building tension and energetic disruption of this tension which usually leads into a whole new theme. Oldfield is the one of the premiere multi-instrumentalists of prog, and it's perhaps more fair to compare others to him than vice versa. Still, for those who are looking for a comparison, both Clearlight and Pekka Pohjola come to mind, although both are similar more in approach than in results, perhaps. I'm a big fan of Oldfield, and recommend this album without hesitation. Most of his work isn't really for people who require the high energy levels of prog subgenres like fusion or prog-metal, but I think anyone with enough patience can learn to appreciate and value these albums. review by Sean McFee — undated —

j o e

Mike Oldfield first entered the biz in his mid-teens, playing with his older sister Sally as one-half of The Sallyangie, though their release Children of the Sun passed without much fanfare (rightly so, I might add). In the ensuing three years, however, Oldfield's precocity and adroit skill for playing an assortment of guitar, keyboard, and other stringed instruments had grown considerably. So, in 1972, the apex period when rock musicians were flirting with classical music ambitions (or pretensions, of course, depending on where your view falls), the 19-year old entered executive Richard Branson's new recording studio The Manor. What he emerged with for a debut album was a mammoth-scaled, album-long construction featuring recurring intricate musical themes, mood shifts, and time changes, all of which were played by himself. Tubular Bells would serve as the signature album of Oldfield's career. Issued in May 1973 as the first entry for Branson's sparkling new Virgin Records, Tubular Bells established the Virgin enterprise, becoming an instant hit upon its initial release and making wealthy all the major parties involved. Oldfield has delved into the album itself time and time again, releasing an orchestral version of it as well as a series of sequel albums. It is also the template from which many other of his subsequent progressive albums are patterned. Of course, it is the opening theme of the first side of the album (which, the liner notes inform us, was recorded in a week) that everyone associates with the name "Tubular Bells": an obsessively played, quasi-Baroque pattern in A minor alternating between phrases of 15 and 16 beats. The theme has a very mystical and unsettling quality to it. It's easy to see why director William Friedkin dumped Lalo Schifrin to score his movie The Exorcist, instead opting for this as the musical backing that very same year. As side one continues, the main theme gradually pushes towards a major tonality, until it finally closes out side one that way, though never to return. Due to The Manor's booking time, the second side of the album, by contrast, was completed sporadically over the next several months. The second side is generally more subdued than the first, though has some good moments, particularly in the theme that opens it. Did this album deserve its massive commercial success and cemented status as a masterpiece? Based strictly on musical terms, I'd have to argue no; it is far from a blinding light masterpiece of cohesive construction and form that it wants to be presented as. There is little sense of overarching gestalt-of development, resolution, and payoff-to the work that I find in the best side-long or album-long progressive pieces (e.g., compare this with the meticulous honing and structuring to be found in a piece like Yes' "Close to the Edge" or King Crimson's "Starless" to use). Oldfield throws together a hodgepodge of different ideas. Some of these, like the main theme and the secondary theme that enters around the four-minute mark of the first side, get the job done and get it done well, in an intimate, pastoral style performed in a manner that recalls the early solo albums of Anthony Phillips. While it grows thin past the first couple of times you hear it, I can also show some appreciation for Oldfield's proggified modernization of Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" with dry-HAL like voiceover. Others ideas, however, are weak, and most of these involve his shrill interruptions of distorted electric guitar, sounding particularly Napoleonic with no rhythm section to support it. Still other ideas are ill-considered stabs at humor that exert more cost than gain on the entire piece (e.g., the madcap vocals on side two that sound like a congested troll, or the jarring Sailor's Hornpipe outro that concludes the album). I know people out there will disagree, but I think the piece as a whole suffers rather than benefits with these types of moments. That's what I find to be the difficulty with Oldfield albums: he'll introduce these beautiful themes with musical sensitivity one moment, and then in the next, be launching these up in the air like clay targets to shoot or else casting them off to sea in favor of a comparatively lame musical idea. Overall, I like Mike Oldfield's work, though they're also not quite at the top of my list. For what it's worth, I feel he did better in this style of album with his very next releases, Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn, and later on still with Amarok. Still, whether justified or not, the truth is that on its status alone, Tubular Bells is an album most serious progressive rock fans will get their hands on before too long, if just out of curiosity. And there are many worse releases on which their curiosity could fall. review by Joe McGlinchey — 12-22-05 —

e r i c

Multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield's crowning achievment (at least in terms of popularity). The music was used in the film The Exorcist, but I do not think it was specifically written for the movie. I have great respect for Oldfield and his obvious talent. This is probably one of the major influences on modern new age music. Though this CD is approaching 30 years old much of it still stands up. The music has a trance like quality, lots of keyboards, with other instruments being added to create layers of sound. One thing I do not care for is the awful distorted guitar sound Oldfield uses. I guess I am used to the smooth, thick, highly sustained overdrive sound, his tone sounds dry and flat. The section approaching the end of "Part 1" where he introduces the instruments is rather painful to listen to, adding a cheesy element. The disc is broken up into parts one and two and runs about 50 minutes. I plan on trying some of his other stuff, but I think if you like Tangerine Dream or bands of that ilk, this should be up your alley. review by Eric Porter — undated —