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Mike Oldfield (1953-) is an eclectic musician who has, in the span of a career going into its fourth decade, explored various musical genres. Mostly famous for his 1973 album Tubular Bells, His Signature Style is the use of overdubbing in studio recordings, which allows him to play most or all of the instruments on a given piece — a practice that was much less widespread when he began using it. Although he has done several radio-friendly pop singles, his better-known works are long instrumentals, occasionally clocking in at one hour of continuous music.
Selected discography:- Tubular Bells (1973)
- The Orchestral Tubular Bells (1975)
- Hergest Ridge (1974)
- The Orchestral Hergest Ridge (1976) (will never be released for various reasons) *
chief among them that, due to a long day of interviews and having to learn how to be conducted and tune a classical guitar in about an hour, his acoustic guitar solo, played by himself, has several self-admitted "very bad" mistakes
- Ommadawn (1975)
- Incantations (1978)
- Exposed (1979) (his only live album)
- Platinum (1979)
- QE2 (1980)
- Five Miles Out (1982)
- Crises (1983)
- Discovery (1984)
- The Killing Fields (1984)
- Islands (1987)
- Earth Moving (1989)
- Amarok (1990)
- Heaven's Open (1991)
- Tubular Bells II (1992), Master of Ceremonies: Alan Rickman
- The Songs of Distant Earth (1994)
- Voyager (1996)
- Tubular Bells III (1998)
- Guitars (1999)
- The Millennium Bell (1999)
- Tr3s Lunas (2002)
- Tubular Bells 2003 (2003)
- Light + Shade (2005)
- Music of the Spheres (2008)
- Tubular Beats (2013) (remix album)
(Tropes partaining to Tubular Bells or its sequels go on the Tubular Bells page)This musician contains examples of:- Colbert Bump: Has been on the giving and recieving end of this:
- The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band probably wouldn't be half as well known if it wasn't for Vivian Stanshall doing the narration of Tubular Bells.
- This very page wasn't created until Mike was mentioned in a cracked article
- Creator Backlash: Notably averted for anything in his entire discography. Even Tubular Bells, which is basically the only thing he's known for, is exempt. In his words: "It's a great song, I don't mind if people know me for it"
- Glory Days: Oldfield released his greatest hit within his debut album. While he has released several other respectable hits, none has really matched it in terms of critical success or musical influence.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Any of his worldier pieces will contain this.
- I Am the Band: He played most of the instruments on many of his earlier albums.
- Instrumentals: Many of his albums and other side-long suites are either instrumental or contain brief vocals or chants (relative to the total length of the piece):
- His first four albums were all instrumental, save for a few minutes of Ommadawn in Part 1, Incantations in Parts 2 and 4, and though not sung, the instrument introductions in Tubular Bells. Then there's the Platinum title track, QE2, 90% of "Taurus 2", the Tubular Bells sequels...the list goes on.
- Leitmotif: In addition to the aforementioned re-recordings, the intro to Tubular Bells has been recycled in some of his later works, such as "Taurus 2", which itself has riffs recycled in other songs of Five Miles Out.
- Lyrical Dissonance: "Moonlight Shadow" and "Crime of Passion".
- Not Christian Rock: Although he uses various religous themes in his music, when asked, he'll describe himself as "spiritual", rather than religious.
- Olympic Games: Composed and performed for the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London games...plus the biggest and loudest tubular bells in Europe.
- Repurposed Christmas Carol: "In Dulci Jubilo" was originally a folk carol before Mike turned it into an instrumental showcase. Repurposed a second time when he used it in a segment honoring England's National Health Service, featuring Mary Poppins and Voldemort of all characters.
- Take That:
- Amarok is one huge one directed to Richard Branson, whose relationship to Mike became very icy by the late 80s...
- Branson demanded Oldfield write a Tubular Bells sequel and Oldfield gave him about the farthest thing from it possible.
- Tubular bells were in fact played on the album, but Oldfield called them "long, thin metallic hanging tubes".
- The real Tubular Bells II wouldn't be written and released until directly after Oldfield's split from Virgin Records.
- For sixty minutes of music, it was divided into 48 sections and was arranged so that it was almost impossible to market any parts of it on the radio.
- "This record could be hazardous to the health of cloth-eared nincompoops. If you suffer from this condition, consult your Doctor immediately."
- "FUCK OFF RB" in Morse Code.
- The Margaret Thatcher impersonator talking about "fresh beginnings" and how "nothing much is happening at the moment" towards the end of the album.
- The oft-forgotten Heaven's Open (the only album Mike did all the lead vocals for) also has quite a few at Branson:
- It's the only album to be credited to "Michael Oldfield"
- The first song, "Make Make" has the lines "We're on the make make | Don't mind, it's fake fake | We're on the make make | We're making heartbreak" and "Don't you know we're not Virgin?"
- The third song, "Mr. Shame", asks the titular character to "embrace love", most likely referring to Branson.
- "Gimme Back" has Mike asking for various body parts back.
- The last song, "Music From The Balcony" ends with someone laughing and saying "Now fuck off!"
- Uncommon Time: But of course, he's a progressive rock musician.
- Tubular Bells is one of the most famous examples of this in popular music, with the beginning riff switching between 7/8 and 8/8.
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