Is It Wrong To Like Mike Oldfield?

hey wait, Tubular Bells, that's one of his isn't it? that's GREAT, or the bit in the Omen is.

oboe!

it's all over the exorcist

I see Nicole is covering for Dan's absence today.

I have been watching Beavis and Butthead, I am feeling inspired.

I got the album for Christmas, in 1976 & for years thought that the listing on each side was the actual tracklist.

Whenever I hear the track "Blue Peter," I immediately think of the Stonehenge/dwarf bit in This is Spinal Tap. Tubular balls...blue peter...good lord people. I think we have a hit off-Broadway show on our hands.

Anyone had a go at his computer game thingy yet? Is it worth downloading?

I do actually rather like "To France".

that song just soars. 'discovery' is a bit dull overall but worth it for that one song.

When he's bad, he's very very bad, the egomaniacal aspects poison everything, can't blame anyone for finding it to be a permanent turn off. Everything changed when I heard 'Hergest Ridge' though, it's a humble, beautiful record. I also like Ommadawn / Incantations (especially the ending) / Amarok. And if you're already having a cheesepool day then Five Miles Out is fun.

His multitracked guitars on the last track of Robert Wyatt's 'Rock Bottom' are one of my favorite moments of recorded sound in the entire world. My heart's still in my throat every time I hear it.

http://nevergetoutoftheboat.blogspot.com/2009/02/mike-oldfield.html

BBC4 video of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells," recorded November 30, 1973

MIKE OLDFIELD (bass, guitar)
MICK TAYLOR - Rolling Stones (guitar)
STEVE HILLAGE - Gong (guitar)
PIERRE MOERLEN - Gong (percussion)
FRED FRITH - Henry Cow (bass, guitar)
JOHN GREAVES - Henry Cow (keyboards, bass)
TIM HODGKINSON - Henry Cow (keyboards)
GEOFF LEIGH - Henry Cow (flute)
MIKE RATLEDGE - Soft Machine (keyboards)
KARL JENKINS - Soft Machine (oboe)
TED SPEIGHT - Kilburn & The High Roads (guitar, bass)
JOHN FIELD (flute)
TERRY OLDFIELD (flute)
TOM NEWMAN (voice)"

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Sprad/MikePlaylist.jpg

Hergest Ridge is awesome.

Yes, after yesterday's Baroque Psych-Folk binge, today is all about album side long prog noodling.

(Yes, I also blame yesterday's Daily Note's article on "English Kosmische albums")

Is it wrong to find a young Mike Oldfield kind of.... erm... hott?

http://festive50.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/20080713195401mike_oldfield.jpg

http://www.intuitivemusic.com/images/C-mike-oldfield-1.jpg

Just shoot me now. It would be kinder. Really.

I read that at first as Daily Mail's article on Kos..

Ha ha, erm, no. That would be hilarious, but no. Daily Note. It's some weird thing sponsored by the Red Bull Music Academy whatever that is, but it's this free daily paper that's been handed out on the tube every day for the past few weeks, with strangely really high quality writing for a free sheet. Like yesterday they had a special issue about the BBC Radiophonic workshop, and before that they had Richard Norris and Pete Fowler writing about 60s psych. It's mostly dance oriented - still surprisingly good.

Not to mention the cognitive dissonance of those kind of newspaper touts who usually push London Lite on you handing out primers on krautrock. I'm so used to dodging them that it's odd to see "Hang on - YES PLEASE."

Anyway this is nothing to do with Mike Oldfield. Sorry. The last half of side two of Hergest Ridge with all the spikey over-portamentoed organ is utterly amazing.

that kosmische music, coming here and taking our prog musicians...

I hadn't noticed that Mike Oldfield played on 'Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road'. And I'm still not entirely sure why that means it shows up in Milton's Oldfield filter up there (but then I know something between 0 and jack shit about itunes).

Yeah, you can play a KAyers CD, and that fairly distinctive guitar line makes you check the musician list.

(I always knew he played with Kev, more wondering if it was him being obvious, or someone else copying his lines like they did with Syd's "Religious Experience" bits)

Did not like Ommadawn - it was way too jaunty and hey nonny-no and all that piping was giving me a headache. Is there anything else that's like Hergest or is that a one-off?

I dunno, I got TBells played at me on a fairly reg basis back then, so when I got a copy of Herg, it sort of left no real impression.

Then Punk happened, and so on.

Exposure (the double live album) is kinda good.

For album-side prog noodling I can recommend Side 3 of Incantations. I wasn't too keen on this album when I was a Oldfield-mad 13 year old but in retrospect it has some brilliant bits in it. I'm still not as keen on the vocal stuff which is a little bit hey-nonny-nonny (Maddy Prior and Sally Oldfield say no more) but is avoidable if that bothers you, since it's mostly on side 2 and 4. The good bits (for me) are the lengthy rhythm build-ups using xylophones, "tribal" drums etc while Mike flails away on his slightly distorted guitar. Compared to TB, the huge repetitive rhythms are really quite audacious.

Is it wrong to find a young Mike Oldfield kind of.... erm... hott?

Exhibit B:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-O-WXcLuM0

He's 28 there.

And I'm still not entirely sure why that means it shows up in Milton's Oldfield filter up there (but then I know something between 0 and jack shit about itunes).

I have Mike tagged as co-composer for that track, which is pushing it, but his solo kills (& that one riff that comes in under 'Can't you see them' is pretty clearly his)

I'm not too big on Tubular Bells or most of Ommadawn either (though I ripped it because mp3's finally make it easy to just skip right to the ending of side 1). Hergest is best, and the other two you probably want to go to after that are Incantations and Amarok. And if you can handle hilariously stiff post-Trevor Horn Fairlight cheese rock, you want Five Miles Out.

ha ha oh god Punkadiddle

I have successfully hurt people's feelings by playing that track before. all of those people were british

I know. Punkadiddle is pure LOL.

Amarok is cool. There's Fairlight on it too, but used tastefully rather than "BANG HERE"S THE FAIRLIGHT BIT". To me it's the purest form of Oldfield avaiable - more so than TB. It's just relentlessly varied, continually changing with a million little bits all over the place, all recorded and performed in his trademarked style. And lots of surprising turns along the way, which is really what you want with Mike.

ha ha 'tastefully', I agree but it's relative with this guy. But yeah more people should know about Amarok, it is over the top, totally untouched by any notions of restraint or good taste. and that main guitar melody that keeps coming back, it's one of those things that can make you happy in under two seconds, it's like ABBA-level irresistable.

& to be fair a lot of the production tricks Mike got up to on Five Miles Out (alternating real guitar tracks with samples, huge dramatic shifts in dynamic range with sample stabs, proggy song subsections) actually pre-date what Trevor Horn did w/ Yes 90125 & the Art of Noise. but less interested in modernism than rocking out like a 14 year old

he just didn't care! later on with the 80's pop attempts and the autopilot 90's TB sequels, he obviously cared a little too much. But how can you not love this guy going platinum with Tubular Bells then following up with "Don Alfonso", not even Aphex could have come up with that

and though some of the pop goes too far for me, there are a few I'm totally grateful for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-1WfkM1qso

his solo on "May I?" on that Kevin Ayers-Nico-John Cale-Eno June 1, 1974 live album is one of my very favorite moments in all music

I think Mike Oldfield is cool. Sure, some of the stuff totally lacks any credibility, but the best stuff is totally iconic. He’s like Iggy Pop – there’s a grounding philosophy (heavily featuring his own personality and abilities) which informs everything he does, good or bad, and although the albums have their own idiosyncrasies and concepts, or are influenced by who he’s working with or new technologies, he’s staggered through all the cultural changes of the last 4 decades with that philosophy totally intact. There’s not too many people who you can say that about.

Oddly, sweaty and shirtless is really doing NOTHING for me. Plus, I think his fingernails are really disturbing to look at (even if they sound nice).

I'll give Incantations a try tomorrow and see where I get with it. I don't even like Tubular Bells as much as Hergest Ridge but that might be because I've heard TB before just enough to have bad associations with it but not enough to really appreciate it.

(It really is just that one pic where he's kind of looking out from under his hair and looks like a young Chris Cunningham that I'm perving over.)

Five Miles Out (the song) is hilariously batshit *and* it was a single.

Oh and that live album is called Exposed (getting my guitarists mixed up) and IIRC the versions of Incantations are better than the studio album, and you get 'Guilty' as an appetiser.

You're really not selling me on this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNYuuPEio4A

Tons of his singles were batshit. A three minute version of Tubular Bells; The Blue Peter Theme; A cover of Abba's Arrival; the William Tell Overture and as mentioned upthread Don Alfonso (fuck knows what genre that is) and also the Cuckoo Song. Totally WTF?

Haha, I said it was batshit, I never said it was any good :) Although I loved it as a kid, MO was my first gig, Glasgow Apollo 1980, I was only 8 and kept nodding off from the dope wafting about.

Jealous!

Loved that album when I was young too. I don't think I've heard it in 25 years. It sounds great to me right now. ha-ha.

Also Disco! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c61cM9Tgglc

That To France single is lovely, mind you.

Not really feeling the 3 minute pop songs, though. I like the long, fluid instrumental things that go on for 20 minutes growing and changing and going through sweeping movements. Ach, I'd probably be better off going back to Steve Hillage for that sort of thing.

I have nice Japanese CD copies (with the vinyl replica sleeves/obi and all that still sealed) of Exposed and Discovery if anyone wants them, can't get rid of them on EBay, PM me.

Also Kate I have some Hillage too in the same format, Open, Green, Live Herald & For To Next, if you want them let me know.

Did not like Ommadawn - it was way too jaunty and hey nonny-no

what does this mean? i dig the hell out of sections of ommadawn, some of it is totally hillage-esque

Really got to get around to hearing Hergest Ridge. Have *been* to Hergest Ridge and it really is a lovely lovely place.

Have to say that I do like some of the cheesey singles quite a bit - Moonlight Shadow, SHadow On The Wall, all that stuff I don't mind at all.

i've always liked this tune, if we're talking 3 min pop songs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI-ohBQr6ic

You know what hey nonny-no is, don't you? That particularly annoying style of English Faux-folk of people bouncing around in silly Elizabethan codpieces piping and singing "hey nonny-no." It just sounded too forcedly joyful. What I like about Hergest is how mellow and reflective and even slightly sad it sounds.

Wait, I've figured out a rule of thumb for whether I like Mike Oldfield or not. Brown hair = I like it, blond hair = I do not like it. There we go. Sorted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt8d3Shlfrg

Moonlight Shadow kind of splits the difference between Fairport/Trees and Fleetwood Mac.

Jon Anderson! With Delay!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mwk4NGEiNI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDATlGQmOHU

^ Kate, do you know this stuff? It's dreadfully twee, but I could totally hear Broadcast doing a version.

He loves a bit of Hey-Nonny-No does Mike Oldfield.

Nah, hadn't heard the Sallyangie stuff. It is terribly twee, but there's an element of spookiness that is quite appealing. More naive than twee - though perhaps that's the thing. I like what he did when he was shy and fragile and spooky, but then he went off and did EST and got all confident and all, but that destroyed the kind of fragility that I liked about him.

Maybe.

Or maybe it's the over the top production of the later stuff that I don't like.

Totally caning the Youtubes here. The crowd getting into it on that Montreaux Punkadiddle thing are fab!

wow that guilty clip was hilarious and amazing. and the foreign affair track is great. for another pop song (one that even got covered by Hall & Oates!). i think i've got it as a bside to five miles out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLCYfqTU1kc

here's another great disco-y single by his sister

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXJZEC4FRa4

Had no idea Family Man was Oldfield!

Have people hear the killer Italo version of Incantations/Foreign Affair (the 2 mashed together that is) by G.A.N.G.????
If not then here: http://www.altairnouveau.com/Incantations.mp3

^awesome! there's another rad edit of foreign affair that peter visti put out a few months ago

yeah have to say most of these youtubes don't make the argument in favor of mike for me, but I'm glad people are into those & I'm not surprised disco edits of those are turning up

Incantations is the first one he did after discovering Reich & Glass, and it's his last album completely free of pop attempts (at least until Amarok). The next one Platinum has the disco cover of Glass' "North Star", which some might be strong enough for.

I know his pop albums are heartfelt & not commercial pandering -- he can write incredible melodies & hooks, but his instincts for perfect, shamelessly grandiose sidelong instrumental suites usually don't translate well over into songs, they come off a little klunky. And songs don't let him exercise the same slow developments & repetitions that he's so strong with, you can see why he felt an affinity with Glass & Reich -- Hergest Ridge isn't minimalism but it works because of the way the repetitions build and change.

The original 1974 mix of Hergest Ridge is drastically different than the post 1976 one that came out on Boxed. The original mix never made it to CD -- it's not as good, less atmospheric and textural -- you definitely want the CD version, but if you really love the piece the original mix is interesting to hear, it's mixed more like a rock record, guitars louder than the oboes. And the quadraphonic mix that came in the vinyl version of Boxed is especially epic during the guitar wall section on side 2.

wishing I had Amarok on my iPod though, that's the first thing I'm headed for when I get home tonight. that album is the only thing that's like that album.

Re the disco edits: "Guilty" is itself a discofied version of bits from Incantations.

By the way, I had no idea about the different mixes of Hergest Ridge. I think I've only heard the original.

I never put that together about "Guilty"... btw if you get the 12" it sounds rad slowed down.

i have a record at home and can't remember who it's by, but mike plays on it. it's this older long grey haired dude. cover is just his face. he almost looks wizardly w/o a beard. the album is long, ambienty, minimalist tracks. i think the titles have something to do with pythagorean?

The Mathematician's Air Display by Pekka Pohjola? He produced it.

wow, never heard that one, thanks

jaxon: he's bearded, but maybe Bedford's The Odyssey? 'The Sirens' is the great track from that one.

Mike's on Bedford's Stars End & Rime of the Ancient Mariner as well, the former is a pretty groovy post-Ligeti/Nono/Strauss dissonant orchestral freakout with timpani and awesome Oldfield guitar solos and the latter is a theatrical reading of the poem with hypnotic seasick minimalist settings of sea shanties (w/ awesome Oldfield guitar solos)

that's it! mind was cloudy at work. beard and Phaeacians. it's all greek to me. i wasn't feeling that record when i first heard it, but put it on recently w/an open mind to more ambient things and it's great. also some great guitar freakout stuff.

I never put that together about "Guilty"... btw if you get the 12" it sounds rad slowed down.

ya. i have the 7" and both that and the bside, incantations sound great at 33

David Bedford is the bloke wot sings on "Don Alfonso"

Incantations = the business.

He is brown haired on this album, I think my comparison holds.

Ha-ha. I think he's got great hair most of the time. Probably not nowadays though.

Hands up who on this thread went home and listened to Mike Oldfield last night? I did.

I checked out that Pekka Pohjola album. I enjoyed it, especially the long title track. Reminded me of Alf Emil Eik's Joy & Breath of Eternity.

saving Amarok & Hergest for a car trip this weekend

i listened to 'crises' and 'ommadawn' last night. still waiting for 'amarok', 'hergest' and 'incantations' to dl, looking forward to those very much

also can't get "foreign affair" out of my head

used to hammer tubular bells when i was a kid and have just heard guilty for the first time. in fact im already in the process of doing an edit of it to play tommorow night, wow. incantations sounds sick too, reminds me of the chord progression of a song from fenneszs venice. belbury poly has gave me such a lust for anything completely out of time that i seem to be absolutely eating up medieval style ballads with soaring guitars over the top (which is a surprise)

I will confirm that I listened to Hergest Ridge and Guilty last night.

This thread has been great for bringing me back to Mike! Last night I listened to a chunk of 5 Miles Out.......on a plane! I'm not sure if I was technically 5 miles out but it was over the Rockies so it must've been close. Actually it wasn't that good because of the plane noise. I listened to the whole thing when I got home and that is a great Mike Oldfield album. All the usual tropes are present: singing guitars, vocoders, never-ending anthemic crescendos, a full-on hey-nonny-no hoe-down; neanderthal-inspired rock banging (what is it with this guy and his caveman influences) etc. And the title track and Family Man are both really great. I'm starting to really like the vocal stuff on Incantations now too. The Hiawatha track especially. It's quite beautifully hypnotic.

I can't believe that people on ILM will rep so hard for Mike Oldfield and totally ignore Steve Hillage. Sigh.

Or Steve Tibbetts for that matter

ha.
just deleted 3 albums of Hillage off my hard disc (Rainbow/L/Fish Rising)
.. now i am beginning to want to revisit them.
off to see if they are still in my bin to restore ..

Hey, I'm a fan of Gong and was just listening to Fish Rising last week. It's great. Masonic, i thought you were allergic to that stuff owing to the pixie dust and patchouli? I don't really place it in the same category as Mike Oldfield though. Maybe I need to hear some of his later albums? I guess Hillage wasn't as ubiquitous in parental/older sibling's record collections as Tubular Bells was, so our impressionable ten year old minds weren't programmed by him in the same way that they were by MO.

I'm digging Tubular Bells right now, all I ever heard of it was that creepy opening bit. Is any of his other stuff worth it? Heard so many good and bad things about him...help!?

Read the thread.

i have read it, there's like zero consensus
thanks anyway

dude all your help is upthread

but basically, Hergest, Incantations, Amarok

i can't see photobucket
but yeah i'll have to give one of those a listen

I always assumed Tubular Bells was like Oxygene - like a classic work
But it all seems too scattershot for that; is this the way he usually records his albums?

Hergest & Incantations are a bit more coherent, but yes part of the appeal is that these are suites that go all over the place & I love Amarok because you just have no idea what it's about to do

I did check out the deluxe reissues of Hergest and Ommadawn that came out last year -- each one a 3 disc set with a 2010 remix on disc 1, original mix w/ bonus material on disc 2 and a 5.1 surround DVD

Hergest lineage is complicated -- there was the original 1974 vinyl mix, which is trying its hardest to be a rock record. then he remixed it completely for the 1976 'Boxed' set, with liner notes that quote him saying something like 'now it's the experiment in texture I always wanted it to be'. that's the only version that's been pressed to CD for the last 25 years. but the 1976 mix isn't on this deluxe edition -- it's the 1974 mix and a new 2010 mix. and the 2010 mix is actually very close to the 1974 mix in approach, back to trying to be a rock record, but carefully composed out with automation, tons of changing dynamics & balances and everything trying to reach out and grab you every few bars - utterly different details are brought out, other ones totally obscured, just a completely performance of the music.

It's always going to be the 1976 version for me. Maybe because it's the first I heard, but it's just got that floating ambience -- this new version is way too flashy. But disc 2 also has a home demo of the whole piece, tracked almost entirely with home organ & guitars, and that's worth hearing if you're a fanatic.

The 2010 Ommadawn I thought was pretty maxed out and epic, especially the end of side 1. And the packaging has that picture of his extended family under the tree.

Amarok is the Oldfield album for people who like the editing aesthetic of The Faust Tapes

Thinking I'm gonna check out Heargst then. I've heard a ton of good things about Amarok tough so I was surprised to see that it came out in 1990.

From what I can tell Oldfield never really had much of a sense of how his work would be recieved or what it should sound like, so it doesn't surprise me that he's constantly re-recording everything.

Dude was racked by self-doubt and little or no self-confidence, in the early days anyway

Timely revive. Ordered Hergest Ridge yesterday as it happens as my camping soundtrack for next week on account of good memories of this thread.

Trouble is frogbs, there's worthwhile tracks on pretty much each album I've heard (all of them up till maybe Amarok) you might like the more longform ones.

What's weird also if how much in hock he is to Glass and Reich, but especially Glass. Nobody ever really mentions it, Milton did upthread mind.

well, it was Glass he did a cover version of in 1979 (even hired Glass' engineer & arranger for that track) but I hear a lot more Reich than Glass on things like Incantations

people do not mention it because Oldfield's awkward pop songs have never been 'cool' but now that Kayne's sampled him maybe things will change

& people all crazy about things like Ford & Lopatin, y'know, if you want to see something genuinely awkward, you can only fly until dawn

ha ha oh GOD, at the ending, Mike's triumphant fist-clenching o'er fireworks

kinda love that one. it is not even wrong.

some tracks from his Guitars album keep popping up on last.fm

is his whole style just overdubs, or does he actually do band-oriented stuff?

now that Kayne's sampled him

or Kanye I guess is how you're supposed to spell his name

some tracks from his Guitars album

I just joined a band with one of the only other Oldfield fanatics I personally know and he always swears there are things worth hearing after 1991 but whenever he tries to play me some of it I get scared pretty quickly

is his whole style just overdubs, or does he actually do band-oriented stuff?

I can't think of anyone since Les Paul who'd really made overdub fetishism such a part of their music's persona, where what you hear is not trying for the illusion of a live band, but intended to be heard as one person's expression, only Les Paul sounded like a band, and Oldfield took it to a point where he sounded like an entire orchestra. common practice now, but it wasn't when Oldfield put out his debut album at age 19

but the BBC4 TV live version of Tubular Bells upthread, I like better than the record, and the late 70's live band record 'Exposed' is worth checking out after you hear the originals

y'know what I'd never seen until just now? the video for 'Heaven's Open'. please do not watch it

Been listening to Hergest Ridge a bit lately; it doesn't have the iconic feel of TB but in many ways is a "cooler" record. I have the 2010 remaster on, in what ways is the 1976 version different? Is it a dramatic thing? I'm a little annoyed by all the Tubular Bells extras - you get the original, the demo, the 2010 "remix", not sure what exactly the differences are among any of these things.

the 1976 record is more about texture, it's more elegant, flows and builds more slowly, it's dreamier. it also anticipates minimalism in the way it is content to just keep cycling & repeating. the 1974/2010 mixes are trying harder not to be boring, changes the balances of the instruments more often, and pushes the stringed instruments & drums higher in the mix. some of the brass textures really go over the top in a way I personally find to be a bit too much. it's a pretty good demonstration of how a remix of a record constitutes a completely different performance of the piece; all the tracks are the same performances, but the result of the orchestration has a completely different result

1976 mix all the way for me, but granted it's the one I grew up with

I have listened to 'Tubular Bells' maybe 3 times in my life but have lost track of the number of times I've listened to 'Hergest'

I've been cranking the second half of the second side of Hergest Ridge a lot. Such an unexpected surprise, kind of reminds me of the growler parts in TB, where you kind of feel like you're getting a good impression of the album as something more soothing and predictable, then it suddenly switches it up on you.

& people all crazy about things like Ford & Lopatin, y'know, if you want to see something genuinely awkward, you can only fly until dawn

I LOVE MIKE OUTFIELD... HE IS GREAT MUSIC MAKER
geo86970 2 weeks ago

I listened to the entirety of side one just the other day during a rainy stroll through Chelsea (and stepped on Ethan Hawke's foot -- by accident, I assure you -- on the corner of 10th Avenue and 21st street).

Wow wow wow, just discovered that 7:00 in to Mike Oldfield's 'Ommadawn' you hit the pipes and pianas beauty of the 1980s John Grant/Jackanory Littlenose theme tune! I can't be 100% sure that my attachment to this melody isn't entirely sentimental and the product of my dad giving me a cassette version of 'Littlenose the Joker' to run into the ground from a very early age, but I've listened to this 90 seconds of music about 15 times on the trot now and I can't help but share it (6.40 onwards):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpToJDpxQa0

it's wrong to like things that cool people hate

I thought this revive might somehow be related to the new Daft Punk.

i been laboring under the misapprehension that mike oldfield is cool as hell since like 1981

yeah, no shame at all in the oldfield game.

I was delving heavy into Mike Oldfield and Will Ackerman this time last year — for the first time.

Needless to say —as a pre-Mike Oldfield John Martyn and Durutti Column fan— my first listens to Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn were fairly awesome.

I'm definitely a fan.

Man, if this is wrong, I don't want to be right.

oldfield is on a lot of great albums of the 1970s. he has some awesome riffage on wyatt's rock bottom.

i should say, a lot of great albums OTHER THAN HIS OWN.

The second bit of Hergest Ridge Pt II sounds like some sort of demented Big Country jam.

Actually, it sounds like the music they did for the Restless Natives soundtrack.

Oops, dropping a bit tooo much Big Country knowledge there.

Don't be embarrassed, you're doing it on a Mike Oldfield thread

Haha, true!

Just watched the BBC4 TB doc, did not expect to be quite so moved by it at all, good grief. Definitely worth watching. Watching the follow on programme now, which is the 1973 BBC Second House performance of TB. I recognise Fred Frith and Steve Hillage and Mick Taylor, but has anyone got a complete listing of who plays on that?

No Viv Stanshall in the studio, whch is a great shame, but I understand now that he might not have been the most polished of performers.

Is it wrong to want to be Mike Oldfield?

http://tmr-web.co.uk/robreedsancturay/Blank.html

his version of "All Right Now" is really bad

His playing with Kevin Ayers in the early 70s is fucking incredible...I rewind those solos over and over

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r3fPo5JsPtY

Hideo Kojima used this song in some trailers for his upcoming game, thought I would see it on this page but didn't. Mmaybe I missed it. Cool song...

the 1976 record is more about texture, it's more elegant, flows and builds more slowly, it's dreamier. it also anticipates minimalism in the way it is content to just keep cycling & repeating. the 1974/2010 mixes are trying harder not to be boring, changes the balances of the instruments more often, and pushes the stringed instruments & drums higher in the mix. some of the brass textures really go over the top in a way I personally find to be a bit too much. it's a pretty good demonstration of how a remix of a record constitutes a completely different performance of the piece; all the tracks are the same performances, but the result of the orchestration has a completely different result

1976 mix all the way for me, but granted it's the one I grew up with

I have listened to 'Tubular Bells' maybe 3 times in my life but have lost track of the number of times I've listened to 'Hergest'

― Milton Parker, Tuesday, August 9, 2011 2:00 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This record is fucking great! Thanks for talking about this you guys. Where does one find the 1976 mix? Is it only on the LP? I see there's an 'orchestral hergest ridge' which was recorded that year and suppressed but I assume that's not it.

apparently the original cds have the 1976 version (though presumably pared back to stereo, as the '76 remixes were done for a quadrophonic box set he put out), but the new ones have the '74 mix.

ok, local charity shop as TBII.
is it shit and full of crap like that sea shanty crap on TB1, or, worthy of my coin and time ?

It's Trevor horn producing iirc, but idk what that amounts to in 1992

incantations tho

http:/www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=0tF6nmOhVxE

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=0tF6nmOhVxE

Such a jam

Loved his autobiography - which is less about the music, than his struggles with depression.

One thing I like about that song is way the solo switches up from a knopfler-ish twangathon into that kind of screaming eagle mac attack

Am also a fan of the distinctly less pleasant follow up 'shadow on the wall' with Roger Chapman as the timbral opposite of Maggie reilly.

Singing it through in my head and it keeps morphing into the guitar bit from Hocus Pocus

Roger chapman is the roger wootton to Maggie reilly's bobbie Watson; someone please tell me the rest of Crisis plays out like an aor First Utterance

Listened to a chunk of Crises on my ride in and no it's not like Comus FM at all, it's all a bit stranger than that. Overlong title track goes a bit Battles in places, and then after Moonlight Shadow you get these two reggae-ish numbers - first one with Jon Anderson is like a skank-prog follow-up to State Of Independence, second one is an ambient dub pop song five years before The Orb got there. Weird.

There was a live in the studio take on Tubular Bells that featured several underground people including most of Henry Cow. I think it should be pretty good but I haven't heard it recently.
Kind of funny that hard leftist people are working ion a musical project with a future Tory like Oldfield.

I liked him in the Whole Wide World with Kevin Ayers too. & possibly Sallyangie

I bought Crises because I love "Moonlight Shadow" and "Foreign Affair" so much, and decided to give the rest of the record a chance. Lord almighty is the sidelong title track terrible. It's like every tasteless, tacky, bad idea of the late 1970s crammed into 20 minutes. I'm sticking with the early stuff from now on (though I will still rep for "Foreign Affair" till the day I die).

Also, surely some hip-hop producer has sampled the first four bars of "Foreign Affair" by now, right? I mean, it sounds straight up early Def Jux to me

Ha, I actually like "Crises".

Somehow, I only just realised that Kanye West sampled "In High Places" in "Dark Fantasy" (maybe because I never liked that KW album). Does he have a thing for prog rock? There was the King Crimson sample on that album too.

In High Places was previously sampled by others though.

I also like Crises - it was the album that came out during my high school Mike Oldfield craze, so I'm down for life basically.

Crises and Five Miles Out are both really good, I like 'em as much as anything he's done.

Supposedly the next album is a sequel to Ommadawn - guess I'll hold my breath

In High Places and Foreign Affair make this worthy imo. Five Miles Out has the title track and Family Man. I'm not a massive fan of the side-long suites but there are nice bits and tons of cool sounds and textures (assuming one has already accepted Oldfield's whole "thing" that is).

Discovery got re-released recently, after which I got off the bus, this is a kinda sweet little track with a hilariously over the top chorus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvzG9siO704

Hergest Ridge became a favorite record of mine last year, magical album

i walked up the irl hergest ridge once partly because of mike o. it is a nice spot tbh

http://www.tgos.co.uk/contentAsset/image/6ca321bf-1cbb-40d0-9fdb-51fa5f7653b5/firstImage

Discovery got re-released recently, after which I got off the bus, this is a kinda sweet little track with a hilariously over the top chorus.

🎥

"Return to Ommadawn" next week. Maybe I'm not cynical enough but my interest is piqued

Been listening a lot to Amarok this week and lol, such a strange piece. the claim upthread that it's "totally untouched by any notions of restraint or good taste" is so on the money, just "here's a thing, here's another thing, here's another thing, clap clap clap wankadoodle doo!!" for an hour straight, complete with a total "what the fuck" ending. Totally plays to all his strengths too. Too bad he never attempted anything like it again.

That's so weird, I just listened to Amarok yesterday! So many moments of "wait NO... ok yes."

First post (hi! hello!) just to add that, inspired by this thread, I put on Incantations yesterday and thought it was great. Leaner and more focused than Tubular Bells (not entirely a good thing) but less flailing than some of his later stuff. Also prompted my wife to walk into the room and say "this is a bit much, even for you".

Do people sleep on that middle period, Crises, Five Miles Out, QE2, Platinum? SO much good stuff right there.

Also the live album Exposed which brings to life some of the pieces from Incantations.

I like Incantations a lot, and Platinum too. I don't think I've listened to Crises, 5MO or QE2 though I have them on a hard drive.

Hergest Ridge is my favorite by a long shot, peak instrumental unrock IMO

Crises and 5MO are excellent discs, I probably listen to those more than any of his other stuff. QE2 is plenty enjoyable, but not a whole lotta meat on those bones.

i love the guitar solo at the end of side 1 of Ommadawn.

"moonlight shadow" is my fuckin jam!!!

Best pop song ever.

Also, "Innocent" from 1989 is a song that hardly gets mentioned. The 12" mix is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMq1gdu8AiE

Crystal Gazing is ace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XI1devNicQ

Hergest Ridge has been rocking my world of late – I’ve never understood how anyone could compare it to Tubular Bells. To me, they’re night and day.

The opening section of this is so exquisitely arranged – the melody has such a great melancholy series of turns you never want or to end. It’s almost hard to believe that the trumpet (cornet?) part on the original mix in 1974 was played an octave lower with none of the urgency and desperation that makes it so affecting.

The arrangements and production are also special. The echo of the organ and guitar melody in the opening section is disorienting and organic. I’d almost say it’s hard to believe Oldfield was only 21 at the time but then of course there’s the section on side 2 with the dozens of head banging overdubbed guitars – it’s a very 21 year-old moment, indeed.

But really, I love it all. What a record.

My favorite as well.

This last week I’ve bought two copies of Hergest Ridge – the 2010 deluxe issue because I wanted to hear it in surround (it’s great) and now the 2000 CD issue because Milton’s passionate posting has convinced me I needed to hear the 1976 Boxed mix – so I popped for a cheap copy off Discogs.

His solo on Kevin Ayers' Whatevershebringswesing is one of the most sublime moments in all of recorded music.

I watched the BBC documentary on the making of Tubular Bells last night ... pretty enjoyable. Oldfield is clearly some kind of prodigy – comping ably along through all the parts as the multitracks play, shifting from bass to guitar to keyboard with ease, not missing a beat. Seeing this sixty year-old in questionable mental health part discuss undergoing Exegesis and the high wearing off after a few years is particularly heartbreaking. It’s hard to hear the rest of his work as much more than various states of depression.

It makes one wonder what would’ve become of him had TB not been so sui generis or been released under less ramshackle circumstances.

How amazing is this video - floral fucking shoppe or what

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7K-pr9ZinY

The bonus tracks on the newest edition of Tubular Bells seem to go on forever

the album tracks too

I'm enjoying the album but those newer bonus tracks aren't doing much for me, I'm just not feeling a pleasing structure with them and the style isn't that compelling except the bit that sounds like Zelda

This 2023 reissue includes the abandoned "Tubular Bells 4", which is pretty bad in both conception and execution. Oldfield apparently said he had been struck by inspiration after a long time pondering how to mimic the original record, but the results just take the opening bars and change a few notes around. I'd be embarrassed on behalf of an AI program if it tried to pass this off as a new piece of music.
It's sad that he would feel compelled to (continue to) ape past successes, and sadder that he would do it so badly, and saddest that this is apparently his final musical statement. I guess the only good thing about the whole business is that he abandoned it after only recording 8 minutes.

Is it really that upsetting?

I mean, I love him but Oldfield has been aping Tubular Bells for fifty years – and I’m not sure that 8 minute segment is any more or less inspired than any of the two sequels, orchestrations, live performances, edits, or repackagings (I’m not a particularly big fan of the original). Which I guess is a way of saying, they all kind of sound like AI, particularly with their inversions/reversals/and retrogrades of the main theme.

If anything, I’d say TB4 is kind of an appropriate way to end things …

Convoluted though his career path was, I think he was always pushing towards trying something new until he got free of Virgin, even when he was revisiting prior works. The live "Tubular Bells" on Exposed is quite a bold rhythmic revision of a record that was only six years old at that point. After Tubular Bells II (which I've only experienced watching the show on TV, not on record) he obviously became a little obsessive about revisiting his earlier work, (whether in search of commercial success or as some private aesthetic quest I don't know), but this situation really feels like he's been defeated - by his music, by his muse, by his public (assuming that a large section of his audience only pay attention when there's a bell on his album covers).

Oldfield is still only 71 – is this really the last thing he’ll ever do?

Apropos of nothing, this Incantations performance from the Exposed live album is just terrific: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF3YWq2w42g

His last album was seven years ago, and his label announced his retirement, which I suppose isn't definitive.

I thought his post-Incantations pop records were pretty good - QE2, File Miles Out, and Crises make up a nice trilogy in my mind. it deteriorated pretty quickly after that.

Amarok from 1990 is probably on par with his classic records; it's close in approach to Tubular Bells, but a lot more sarcastic and weird. I think that's the point where he got fed up with the business and just went his own way...which is pretty exciting, until it became clear that "his own way" was mostly just re-doing Tubular Bells a bunch and leaning hard into New Age. I've heard some of his post-Amarok albums, not really interested in hearing any of them again. But the Ommadawn sequel from 2017 was quite decent. If that's his last one, so be it.

Exposed is a fantastic record

I got one for £2 a couple weeks ago.

Not played yet...

his solo on "May I?" on that Kevin Ayers-Nico-John Cale-Eno June 1, 1974 live album is one of my very favorite moments in all music

Fourteen years late, but that appears to be played by Ollie Halsall, not Oldfield.

(which tracks -- I don't think it sounds much like MO, it's much more fluid and busier)

I listened to Amarok for the first time yesterday. I know it's a fan favourite but I found it really irritating - there's some good moments, but overall it just aimlessly speed-runs a bunch of TB and Ommadawn soundalikes with no development or flow (and with a bunch of choppy Art of Noise production tics). I can understand why, if you were burned on his 80s output, you might be excited to put the CD in and see a single 60-min track but it really outstays its welcome.

Apparently this was all down to his desire to thwart any attempts for Virgin to release a single or promote it on the radio. I know he wasn't the only musician to go to war with his record label, and I'm no Branson fan, but his all-consuming antagonism of a company that, ultimately, did still bankroll and release 14 of his records long after the public had moved on really is quite something.

kinda remember that being my impression as well. I'm willing to give it another shot though.

not sure what the feud with Richard Branson was about, reading Dave Weigel's book it seems like Branson really did go above and beyond to get the guy out there and help him make whatever kind of music he wanted. he probably did get screwed on the money though. I will say Oldfield kind of comes off like a miserable prick a lot of the time. doesn't seem like a guy who wanted to be famous at all.

My understanding is that Oldfield felt betrayed by Branson/Virgin's pivot to punk later in the decade. Which in one sense puts him in the same boat as all the "then the Sex Pistols came along and it was all over for chaps like us" prog landed gentry, but there does seem to be something uniquely self-sabotaging about his clear desire to have hits and his antagonism towards a company who, presumably, also wanted him to have hits.

tbf Oldfield basically bankrolled Virgin in the early years of its existence via sales of "Tubular Bells".

... not to mention "Hergest Ridge" and "Ommadawn"! Henry Cow and Faust albums weren't really selling in those numbers.

slotting amarok into tidal's "track radio" alg* delivers an insane list of related artists

Maggie Reilly (ok, occasional oldfield vocalist, makes sense)
Sandra (german popstar, sometime partner of Romanian Enigma svengali Michael Cretu)
Jennifer Rush
Inker & Hamilton (new eland synth pop duo that was big in germany)
Holly Johnson
Rose Laurens (sang the wildly racist French hit “Africa” aka “Africa (Voodoo Master)”)
Kim Wilde
The Hooters (Philadelphia rock band)
Stephanie (yes that’s Princess Stéphanie of Monaco)

do these ppl sound like one another (or indeed mike oldfield): no they do not

*i know the alg is allgedly somewhat shaped by things i listen to** but come the fuck on, kim wilde is probably the only entry that comes close to someone i've ever played
**also i know tidal's alg is not well thought of but again, come the fuck on

new eland = new zealand

I think Oldfield found Virgin's contract both demanding and constricting, and that Branson held him to the letter of the deal without any gratitude for how his records had basically made his success. Heaven's Open, the 1991 album that was his last for Virgin, was a concept record about how greedy Richard Branson was.

xp could definitely imagine all those artists appearing in a 80s playlist put together by a German and it would almost certainly include 'Moonlight Shadow', but Amarok is very much a stretch

I love “moonlight shadow” quite a bit

gives me huge chills when she songs “will you come to talk to me this night”

oh i love it too, always have done! so many things i like about it...

- all that delay on the vocals, i don't know what other songs use that trick quite as much but it's like the song is already echoing around in your brain even as your hearing it
- the clannad-ish harmonies that occassionally appear and then mysteriously vanish just as quickly like some sort of synthetic ghosts briefly glimpsed in a misty corner of the studio
- the buy-one-get-one-free offer on the guitar solos, the twangy knopfler-y one getting knocked off it's perch as the second swoops in like a screaming pterodactyl and then keeps flapping around for the rest of the song
- that dramatic strum thing where you just hear that and the drums and it's almost like adam & the ants or something
- but listen again to that one bit and then that you finally notice the strings lurking underneath it all
- and ditto on the “will you come to talk to me this night” bit, that tonal shift in her voice, yes!

ugh, its

I do like his pop stuff, actually I think Five Miles Out is maybe my favorite of his, next to Ommadawn perhaps

"Family Man" is pretty fucking stupid though if you ask me

ts. mike oldfield 'family man' vs black flag 'family man'

maybe not quite the right place to mention it, but you do hear sally oldfield played fairly often on nts these days - 'night of the hunters moon' and especially 'blue water'

'To France' is like Moonlight Shadow Pt2, I was so into Oldfield as a kid, but Discovery is where I stopped caring and I don't think I've heard anything beyond that apart from the odd snippet.

Ahh great breakdown, NickB.

I was thinking of "To France" also. At the time I found the rest of Discovery a disappointment, but now I feel that the record and especially "The Lake" is the end of the musical arc he had been pursuing since he first started composing. Everything post-1985 is a different era.

Sorry, there's absolutely no way I can hear "Moonlight Shadow" anymore without thinking of Dave Angel, Eco Warrior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_IxbKeM-HY

...shadow...

For me Mike's imperial phase is Tubular Bells to Incantations (his best imho), but I like a lot of the 80s stuff and Moonlight Shadow is an all-timer. I don't mind some of the Enigma-ish 90s stuff on Warner too. I'm a fan! I'm just fascinated by that kind of open warfare between the artist and the label, which for obvious reasons doesn't really exist any more. (Apparently Amarok has "f**k off RB" hidden in morse code on it, with Mike offering a prize to anyone who spotted the hidden message. No-one won I believe.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjzpUW_O8YM

This is not unique opinion but I'm blown away by the Clodagh Simonds parts of Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn, mesmerizing, got to hear Mellow Candle soon. Seems like she's been more active in music in the past 20 years than any other time?

She has a really unusual "sour" tinge to her voice, even when she sings sweetly. Maybe Dagmar Krause is a little similar.

That Mellow Candle record is really good, a lot more dramatic and rocking than you would expect given the records it's usually compared to.

I'm in awe of Incantations, despite everything that came before I'm still amazed. I know Oldfield has some massive hits but it's a shame he isn't brought up more, can't think of many bands/artists with a first 4 albums that impressed me this much.

for a few weeks i kept seeing Platinum in a local charity shop and let it go due to the belief that it was a compilation of hits that had gone platinum - mainly cos of the dreadful coverart.
eventually i looked it up.
yeah, i felt rather foolish and was glad it was still there when i realised the errors of my ways.

Totally caning the Youtubes here. The crowd getting into it on that Montreaux Punkadiddle thing are fab!

Live At Montreux is on right now on some shitty free channel I got with my new Freeview box (where they break for adverts every 10 minutes even if it's in the middle of a guitar solo). First of all, he looks so young! Secondly I think he is possibly one of the least charismatic performers I've ever seen but at least Morris Pert seemed to be enjoying himself. Thirdly the keyboard player was from the Adverts! Fourthly lose the vocals. Some great bits but the whole is far too proggy for me.

You can get Boxed on vinyl for very little (especially the re-pressed version) I'm looking forward to hearing how the SQ mixes differ.

he was insanely young when tubular bells was made, given what it is (not quite 20 at its release date, still only 28 in 1981)

it’s absolutely insane. I would probably have worshipped him or something if I was a kid when it came out.

Really want to read his autobio

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1020146.Changeling

Reviews suggest this will be disappointing for anyone wanting to know about his conflict with Branson and what level of creative freedom he had over the years. It seems to focus on the making of his music, mental health and alcoholism.

I picked up Boxed as well, at a record fair a long time ago. And also Tangerine Dream 70-80, which was Virgin's second single-artist boxed set. As far as I can tell Virgin didn't release any more. Boxed is excellent because it has three complete albums plus a disc of extras whereas 70-80 is basically a big complication of excerpts, so it's not as good.

I think like most people my age the Boxed version of Hergest Ridge is the one I'm most familiar with, because the CD used that mix. The quad effect was a property of the waveform rather than an intrinsic element of the vinyl pressing, so CDs of the album will play in quad if you feed them through the right decoder. Adobe Audition will apparently decode the waveform into four discrete channels which presumably could be played through your computer if you had a 5:1 setup.

But do you really want to have Mike Oldfield playing nutcracker, gong, and timpani behind you, and to the right? Behind you, and to the left? Hergest Ridge is frustrating. The original version sounds very spartan to my ears. The remix is fuller but the album needed one more tune on each side. And the recorders at the very beginning are too trebly. They cross over the fine line that separates naive charm from out-of-tune. And yet it has a definite mood. It sounds like a distant ancestor of Sigur Ros. It has ideas. It's mind-boggling that it spent three weeks at number one in the charts.

From what I remember Oldfield had assertiveness therapy in the late 1970s and turned into a completely different musician at that point. And at the same time Virgin kept asking him to sell more records so he concentrated on writing singles. Which worked for a while. I think I got fed up with his unvarying guitar tone although "Five Miles Out" is one of those awesome-but-also-terrible-and-yet-awesome songs that I can't get out of my head.

On a complete tangent I'm reminded of the fallibility of AI. Hergest Ridge had Clodagh Simonds on it. But if you google "clodagh rodgers mike oldfield" the site tells you that "Rodgers is also remembered for her role in various Mike Oldfield projects, including the 1978 album "Mike Oldfield's Hergest Ridge"". Which isn't true at all. Different Clodagh.

Bearing in mind that I'm not a musician, and I'm mentally very shallow, I think the problem is drums. Oldfield came from a solo acoustic / small-ensemble folk tradition that either didn't have drumming, or it was the kind of complicated melodical-style drumming with a bodhran or whatever. He didn't try to add conventional 4/4 rock drumming to his music until the late 1970s, but I have the impression that - as with Tangerine Dream - it was an afterthought. Something he didn't really care about. So his music always had a stiff, slightly fusty quality. It did not have the funk. Could he have embraced his fundamental whiteness and gone full-on Norwegian black metal? That would have been fascinating. Mike Oldfield's Blood and Soil: By The Light of 1,000 Churches. I want ChatGPT to memorise that.

I mean, yes, there's "Guilty", but the tempo is all over the place.

Also, I remember from this interview that Oldfield apparently has, or at least had until 2014, free first class air travel on Virgin Atlantic. So presumably Virgin's booking software has a little piece of code that checks to see whether the passenger is Mike Oldfield. You'd think that given his latter-day disillusionment with Richard Branson the deal would have ended, but no.

Or perhaps the staff are trained to ask each and every single passenger whether they are Mike Oldfield. I've never flown on Virgin Atlantic. I don't know. Still, fuck you, Sally Oldfield! You get nothing. That'll teach you to sign to a subsidiary of EMI.

He didn't try to add conventional 4/4 rock drumming to his music until the late 1970s, but I have the impression that - as with Tangerine Dream - it was an afterthought.

I disagree to an extent. Pierre Moerlen, Phil Collins and Simon Phillips (among others) are among the best drummers of the era and their contributions are both inventive and mixed crisply and clearly on the records. In fact Oldfield's sense of rhythm was probably more generally successful than his attempts to write pop songs. The version of "Tubular Bells part 1" on his 1979 live disc Exposed shows what he was going for in relation to where he was coming from (and that it's a surprisingly adaptable piece of music).

The original version sounds very spartan to my ears. The remix is fuller

You must have this the wrong way round? The remix removed loads of overdubs to make a smoother, more ambient but maybe less "eventful" record. The original mix is the one with bells starting 10 seconds in.

I guess the remix retains the bells, but they're way buried.

The third mix he did around 2010 on the deluxe HR is kind of the best of both worlds. I love it.

Should also point out that Chris Franke was a drummer, so I'm sure Tangerine Dream would have had no real issues with incorporating rhythm into their music - and that's without mentioning Klaus Schluze.

I like this more funky Mike Oldfield (channeling David Byrne?) from 1979:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1rqt8NbTZg

Lol at his look of irritation at 1:29 - presumably at the timing of his fellow musician...

Well Maddy Prior was certainly having a good time. The closing melody of that tune is insanely familiar.

No mention of Killing Fields? It was my first Oldfield, I seen it on an old Amazon list called Evil Eighties Music and it is quite eerie in places. Not much like the other Oldfield albums I've heard.

Tell you what, a fair bit of "Family Man" sounds like "Map Ref" by Wire

Incantations is an all-timer for me, I'll be very surprised if anything else by him tops it, some of my early listens felt as if I couldn't believe how generous it is, "you loved that bit? Here's another and another and another and another..."
Heavenly.