Is It Wrong To Like Mike Oldfield?

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.

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)