Is It Wrong To Like Mike Oldfield?

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.

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)