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Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Virgin Records
Released: 1973.05.01
Time:
 48:53
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): See Artists ...
Rating: ********** (10/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.mikeoldfield.org
Appears with:
Purchase date: 1998.04.04
Price in €: 5,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s



[1] Tubular Bells Part one (M.Oldfield) - 25:31
[2] Tubular Bells Part two (M.Oldfield) - 23:23

Additional Tracks on this CD from Rick Wakemann
[3] Anna of Cleves (R.Wakemenn) - 7:04
[4] Catherine Paar (R.Wakemenn) - 9:10

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Tubular Bells [1]-[2]:

MIKE OLDFIELD - Acoustic Guitar, Bagpipes, Bass & Electric Guitar, Percussion, Piano, Arranger, Conductor, Flagoelet, Glockenspiel, Keyboards, Hammond Organ, Tympani, Farfisa Organ, Tubular Bells, Fuzz Guitar, Producer, Engineer

VIV STANSHALL - Vocals, Master of Ceremonies
JON FIELD - Flutes
LINSAY COOPER - String basses, Oboe
MUNDY ELLIS - Vocals
SALLY OLDFIELD - Vocals
STEVE BROUGHTON - Drums
JABULA - Percussion

MANOR CHOIR - Choir, Chorus
NASAL CHOIR - Choir, Chorus
THE PILT-DOWN MAN
CHORUS SALLY OLDFIELD - Choir
CHORUS MUNDY ELLIS - Choir
CHORUS LUISE - Choir
CHORUS WEISBER - Choir

SIMON HEYWORTH - Engineer, Producer
TOM NEWMAN - Engineer, Producer
BRIAN ARIS - Photography
TREVOR KEY - Design, Photography


Rick Wakeman [3]-[4]:

RICK WAKEMANN - Keyboards

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


LP: 1973 UK (Virgin V 2001)
CD: 1983 UK (Virgin CDV 2001 {2890187 01})
CD: 1989 OZ (Virgin CDVG 2001 {CDV2001 #02}) gold pic disc, Original mix
LP: 1973 UK (Virgin QV 2001)
PD: 1973 UK (Virgin VP 2001) pic disc; mixed down to stereo
LP: 1973 OZ (Virgin/Festival QL 35127)
LP: 1973 OZ (World Records Club 1670R) SQ quad mix; model aeroplane at end
CD: 1989 OZ (Virgin CDVG 2001) limited gold picture disc, Mix unknown
PD: 1973 UK (Virgin VP 2001) pic disc; different mix?
LP: 1973 US (Virgin/Epic PE 34116)
LP: 19?? US (Virgin/Epic HE 44116) "CBS Mastersound" half-speed mastering
LP: 1973 US (Virgin 7 90589-1)
LP: 1973 OZ (Virgin/Festival L 35127)
LP: 1973 JP (Virgin VIP-690)
CD: 1983 US (Virgin V2-90589) Mixes on these versions unknown

TB spent 247 weeks in the charts originally, and 13 weeks in the top ten. However it reentered a few times, especially after TB2 was released.

Mike Oldfield is one of only 3 artists to have knocked themselves off the no.1 spot (TB replacing Hergest Ridge, the others being the Beatles and Bob Dylan.

The instrument "Piltdown Man" refers to the fact that MO sings like a caveman. The Piltdown Man was an anthropological hoax.



"The combination of sounds on the beginning of Tubular Bells was a grand piano, it was a sort-of sustained flutey sound on the Farfisa organ, and a glockenspiel, and there was that combination of three instruments that created that sound."

Mike Oldfield about this album



Mike Oldfield's groundbreaking album Tubular Bells is arguably the finest conglomeration of off-centered instruments concerted together to form a single unique piece. Instruments that were scarcely heard of before this album was made are combined to create an excitable multitude of rhythms, tones, pitches, and harmonies that all fuse neatly into each other, resulting in an astounding plethora of music. Oldfield plays all the instruments himself, including such oddities as the Farfisa organ, the Lowrey organ, and the flageolet. The familiar eerie opening, made famous by its use in The Exorcist, starts the album off slowly, as each instrument acoustically wriggles its way into the current noise that is heard, until there is a grand unison of eccentric sounds that wildly excites the ears. Throughout the album, the tempos range from soft to intense to utterly surprising, making for some excellent musical culminations. Mandolins and Spanish guitars are joined by grinding organs and keyboards, while oddball bells and cranking noises resound in the distance. In the middle of the album, Oldfield announces each instrument seconds before it is heard, ending with the ominous sounding tubular bells, a truly powerful and dominating instrument. The most interesting and overwhelming aspect of this album is the fact that so many sounds are conjured up yet none go unnoticed, allowing the listener a gradual submergence into each unique portion of the music. Tubular Bells is a divine excursion into the realm of new age music.

Mike DeGagne - All Music Guide



The opening bars of this classic album by Mike Oldfield were heard by audiences that packed theaters to witness one of the scariest films of all time--The Exorcist. And it wasn't long before this debut release, not only from Oldfield but also from Richard Branson's new record label, Virgin, found itself in the upper echelons of pop charts around the world. Primarily an instrumental album, with performances on almost every instrument credited to Oldfield, it takes the listener into widely varying musical territories, ending as Viv Stanshall formally announces each instrument as it joins the mix.

Paul Clark - Amazon.com



The 19-year old Oldfield played virtually everything on the mostly instrumental TUBULAR BELLS, which required hundreds of over-dubs in the recording process (2300 in total, according to Rolling Stone magazine). The effect he created, a densely layered, richly textured sound, put "minimalist" musical ideas in a pop music context, and was highly successful. TUBULAR BELLS was the first album to be released on the Virgin label. Excerpts from TUBULAR BELLS were used in the film "The Exorcist." A single version, sometimes called "Theme From The Exorcist" became a top-10 hit, and the album hit number-1 on the British album charts. The then-newly-formed Virgin Records allowed Oldfield a year to complete this 49-minute conceptual effort, which required him to record eighty tracks of himself playing 28 different instruments. Tubular Bells achieved Top Ten chart success in the US when it was used in the soundtrack for the film The Exorcist, selling over 10 million copies.

Scott Bultman - All Music Guide



Die Eröffnungstakte dieses Klassikeralbums fanden damals ihren Weg zu Millionen von Menschen in sämtlichen Kinos dieser Welt: Der Horrorschocker Der Exorzist benutzte Mike Oldfields Tubular Bells als Filmmusik. Nicht lange zuvor hatte Richard Branson sein Label Virgin Records lanciert und Mike Oldfield unter Vertrag genommen. Bald darauf stürmte Tubular Bells die Hitparaden auf der ganzen Welt. In der Hauptsache enthält das Werk Instrumentalnummern, die fast alle von Oldfield Instrument für Instrument im Alleingang eingespielt wurden. Sie entführen den Hörer in bislang unerhörte Klangwelten, bis es schließlich, unter der Ankündigung eines jeden hinzugemischten Instrumentes durch Viv Stanshall, zum orgiastischen Höhepunkt kommt.

Paul Clark - Amazon.de



Es war die erste und für viele Fans die beste Langrille von Mike Oldfield. Es war die erste LP, die Jung-Unternehmer Richard Branson auf seinem neuen Virgin-Label veröffentlichte - sie macht ihn und den Hippie Oldfild zum Millionär. 25 Jahre und zehn Millionen verkaufte Einheiten später beglückt uns nun die remasterte Jubiläums-Ausgabe der "Tubular Bells". Es gab die legendären Instrumental-Teile als normale LP, im Vierer-Vinyl-Pack "Boxes", als schludrig überspielte CD-Erstausgabe, als einigermaßen tauglich überarbeitete Dreier-CD "Boxed", mal ganz abgesehen von einer Orchesterversion und einem Zweitaufguß von Oldfield 1992. Der leidgeprüfte Rezensent kann jetzt aufatmen - süßer die "Röhrenglocken" nie klangen. Aber bitte, liebe HiFi-Gemeinde, erwarten Sie kein highendiges Juwel. Schließlich brauchte Alleinunterhalter Oldfield, der bis auf Schlagzeug, Kontrabaß, Flöte und Gesang alle Klänge erzeugte, schätzungsweise 2000 Overdubs, bis die knapp 50 Minuten vom 16-Spur- aufs Masterband überspielt wurden. Brummen und Rauschen fielen der digitalen Kur nicht restlos zum Opfer. Doch der ehedem zittrige, fast glasige Ton vor allem der akustischen Instrumente (Grand Piano, Axoustic Guitar) hat deutlich an Körper gewonnen. Auch die Dynamik legte, bei kaum höherem Überspielpegel, etwas zu. Die berühmten Einwürfe der Farfisa-Orgel in das hypnotische Eingansthema kommen knackiger, der erste Einsatz der E-Gitarre nach etwas über vier Minuten erheblich saftiger. Ein gewichtiges Argument für die zartgolden eingefärbte Jubiläums-Ausgabe ist zu guter Letzt das 32seitige Booklet.

© Stereoplay



"Der ehedem zittrige, fast glasige Ton vor allem der akustischen Instrumente hat deutlich an Körper gewonnen. Auch die Dynamik legte, bei kaum höherem Überspielpegel, etwas zu. Die berühmten Einwürfe der Farfisa-Orgel in das hypnotische Eingangsthema kommen knackiger, der erste Einsatz der E-Gitarre nach etwas über vier Minuten erheblich saftiger."

L. Brandt in stereoplay 8/98



Mike Oldfield and David Bedford looked worried as they stared morosely into their glasses of orange juice. It was a measure of their anxiety that, at this stage of the day, when the break came to pop round the corner from Barking Town Hall to the pub for a drink, they had eschewed alcoholic liquor in favour of the fruit of the citrus.

Earlier, we had crowded into the control room of the Manor mobile recording unit to hear the playback of the day`s takes, and I could understand their concern, for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra were just not getting it on.

Of course, it was a magnificent sound, the 90 musicians working their way through the themes of Tubular Bells.

Oldfield complained that the cellos, in playing the acoustic guitar beginning of side two, were phrasing it differently.

"That`s just the point, Mike", said Bedford. "We can make the cello sound like acoustic guitars and get to play more percussively, but the you might as well use guitars. The whole reason for using a symphony orchestra is to create something new - even to work against the way you did it on the record".

"Yes," replied Mike. "In general I like it. It does sound different, but I like the difference."

Then he asked for a brassier sound on the French horns - cuivre is the technical term - and they tried for another take.

But gloom descended later, with only 1 1/2 hours of recording time left and what looked like a massive editing job on their hands to put together all the good bits and leave out the fluffs and the uninspired playing.

Of course, rock records are made this way all the time, but it seemed, somehow... wrong... to be contemplating a scissors-and-paste job on the efforts of this magnificent machine.

"It happens all the time," said Bedford. "Symphony orchestras rarely record more then five or ten minutes at a time these days."

"It`s like a huge monster," said Mike, "lumbering to its feet and getting started. As they play, the spirit gets better, but somehow they sound bored. Perhaps it`s because I`m bored with Tubular Bells".

I wasn't sure if I had heard alright, and certainly Bedford misunderstood what Mike has just said.

"Oh, no, they`re not bored with playing it", he said. "It`s only the second day they've been working on it. If they got bored that quickly, imagine how they`d feel the hundredth time they play something by Mozart".

"No," said Mike, "I`m not talking about them. I`m talking about me. I`m bored with it".

I left them to work into the evening and arranged to meet Mike the next morning to find out how things had gone and talk about things in general.

We began with Tubular Bells and I reminded him that he had said that perhaps he was getting bored with it.

"What do you mean 'perhaps'?" he said with a laugh. "But just after we went back from the pub I suddenly found myself getting enthusiastic again. I think it was because the orchestra were playing it a lot better. I quite enjoyed it, the rest of the evening. I was really very involved in listening to it. By the end of it we got two very good takes. I was really amazed".

"It still isn't together, by a long chalk, but, I dunno, there was a spirit generated which had been lacking in all the other sessions."

How keen was he on symphonic versions of works that had not been conceived as symphonic?

"Well, if it had been my idea and I'd organised it, I might have been more enthusiastic, but it was out of my hands. It would have happened, anyway. It's an interesting idea. It gives a new dimension to the music, quite surprising so.

"There does seem to be a thing... some people, as soon as they hear the sound of an orchestra, they think Ah, classical music" and turn it, off. I've met quite a few people like that. I would have thought people would want to buy it, or want to listen to it, at least once.

" I did experience a very wonderful state of mind once. It lasted about ten minutes. Listening a piece of music, Sibelius's Fifth Symphony, the last movement - I think that had a tremendous effect upon me, just that state of mind:

"One part of it, I was in the very sensitive condition, sitting in a room alone, I could really hear just about everything that was going on in that piece of music and a sudden image came, not a visual image, an idea that every instrument was a voice, and there was a creature, some sort of creature, talking. One tune in that, if I could picture the creature that was saying those words, then it would be a very nice-looking animal. Everything about that particular performance was just very beautiful and everyone was speaking very nicely. I think I try and do that on guitar. I try to talk, as a voice.

"I can't stand people who play things blandly - you know, just sounds, notes. Somebody has probably invented some kind of categorisation, music that is just blandly played, and any merit in it is just its construction. Are there two words that will describe those two things?".

The subject was not pursued. So, how had Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge differed?

Tubular Bells as it appears was conceived largely in an urban environment, and the music reflects this. It is episodic, gritty, unflowing.

"The textures of a lot of rock music", said Mike, "and the textures of a city street, they're really a similar sort of feel. Lots of confusion and lots of nasty overtones: things going bang, crash, car doors, horns. And then there is the general undercurrent: tube trains, buses, cars- the rumble of several millions cars on a street gives the whole of London a big brrrr, incredibly deep, and you can feel it in your rib cage. It might have something to do with people like bass so much. I like bass; it's much nicer form of that rumble.

"Hergest Ridge, on the other hand, is smooth, uncluttered. There are no tube trains, very few car doors, lots of open countryside, smooth hills, a general feeling of smoothness and well-being and non-hysteria, just a much nicer environment. In fact, we went to Cornwall, and driving back we were listening to Hergest Ridge on the car stereo, and as far as relating the music to the country side - I've only just thought of this approach - It wasn't like Cornwall at all. It was really like Herefordshire.

"It's basically not more than six different tunes and the tunes are related, so the whole thing is related. Also, if you want to get anything out of it, you've got to really listen to it. There's lots of things hidden, things that may seem meaningless, but they do have a meaning, a musical meaning. And just the general texture is so comforting."

I suggested that one of the things the critics found most difficult to accept about Hergest Ridge was this comforting effect, the romanticism of the tunes, in a world where music had to be agonising to be taken seriously.

"Silly boys," he said, half to himself. "The problem of the world today is that there's not enough romance".

By Karl Dallas
From Melody Maker, September 28, 1974



Bob Eichler:
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.


Sean McFee:
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.


Joe McGlinchey:
This is your archetypal (and most commercially successful, to my knowledge) Mike Oldfield prog album: a mammoth-scaled construction featuring recurring intricate musical themes, mood shifts, and time changes. Think a harder-edged Anthony Phillips solo album without the track separations. Oldfield is also prone to some droll humor throughout: in this case, a proggified modernization of Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" with dry HAL-like voiceover; an out-of-left-field quotation of "Sailors' Hornpipe"; and various silly vocal growlings. I like Oldfield's work when he makes these types of albums, though they're also not quite at the top of my list. An acquired taste, but Tubular Bells is certainly a good starting point if you don't own any of his albums.


Eric Porter:
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.

ProgReviews.com
 

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All tracks are instrumental.

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