History Music / TubularBellsII

''Tubular Bells II'', released in 1992, is the fifteenth studio album by English ProgressiveRock multi-instrumentalist Music/MikeOldfield. His first album on WEA Records in the UK and Creator/RepriseRecords in the US, onto whom he signed after fulfilling his contract with Creator/VirginRecords in 1991, the album acts as perhaps an even bigger "fuck you" to Virgin than his last two album on that label ever hoped to achieve. Specifically, the album gives WEA something that Virgin had constantly demanded but never received: a sequel to ''Music/TubularBells'', Oldfield's 1973 debut megahit.

** [[Creator/AlanRickman Snape himself]] pulls MC duties on "The Bell", in his trademark deadpan droll. Because the MC hadn't been decided on at the time the artwork was put together, he's credited only as "a strolling player" in the liner notes.

* LighterAndSofter: Oldfeld wrote the original ''Tubular Bells'' from a very dark, depressed, alcohol-fueled place. ''Tubular Bells II'' comes from a bright, optimistic place and it shows. Even "Altered State" (the "Piltdown Man" variant) is fairly goofy.

* IdiosyncraticCoverArt: The cover art nods back to that of the original ''Music/TubularBells'', featuring a yellow CGI version of the bent-bell logo atop an oceanic blue background.

For this album, Oldfield enlisted not only Tom Newman, co-producer of the original ''Tubular Bells'', as producer, but also [[Music/TheBuggles Trevor Horn]], the latter of whom had achieved major success producing a variety of artists throughout the 1980's (including, but not limited to, Music/{{Yes}}, Creator/GraceJones, Music/{{ABC}}, Music/FrankieGoesToHollywood, and his own group Music/ArtOfNoise). Consequently, the album has a strong tone of "old meets new," combining the orchestral-inspired prog composition and instrumentation of ''Tubular Bells'' with advancements in production technology and emerging trends in musical techniques among artsier, more experimental acts, including many of the NewAge artists that Oldfield had been lumped in with throughout his career.

For this album, Oldfield enlisted not only Tom Newman, co-producer of the original ''Tubular Bells'', as producer, but also [[Music/TheBuggles Trevor Horn]], the latter of whom had achieved major success and acclaim for his production work with a number of critically and commercially successful artists throughout the 1980's (including, but not limited to, Music/{{Yes}}, Music/ArtOfNoise, Music/{{ABC}}, and Music/FrankieGoesToHollywood). Consequently, the album has a strong tone of "old meets new," combining the orchestral-inspired prog composition and instrumentation of ''Tubular Bells'' with advancements in production technology and emerging trends in musical techniques among artsier, more experimental acts, including many of the NewAge artists that Oldfield had been lumped in with throughout his career.

* WorldMusic: Elements of this are present throughout the album, most prominently in the choral sections on "Altered State".

''Tubular Bells II'', released in 1992, is the fifteenth studio album by English ProgressiveRock multi-instrumentalist Music/MikeOldfield. His first album on WEA Records in the UK and Creator/RepriseRecords in the US, onto whom he signed after fulfilling his contract with Creator/VirginRecords in 1991, the album acts as perhaps an even bigger "fuck you" to Virgin than his last two album on that label ever hoped to achieve. Specifically, the album gives WEA something that Virgin had constantly demanded but never received: a sequel to ''Music/TubularBells'', Oldfield's 1973 debut megahit. A fairly self-aware project, the album riffs on the tendency for sequel albums to be retreads of their predecessors by... being a retread of its predecessor, but with added electronic experimentation in line with the change in direction Oldfield was undertaking in the 1990's. The end result is an album that sounds both attached to and detached from the first ''Tubular Bells'', repeating enough of the same beats while still having enough unique elements to stand out on its own apart from having "Tubular Bells" in the title.

The resulting album was released to mixed reactions from critics, largely as a result of it repeating much of the same structural elements as the first ''Tubular Bells'', yet despite this it managed to be a considerable commercial success for Oldfield, topping the charts in the UK and Spain and being certified quintuple-platinum in Spain, double-platinum in the UK, and gold in Germany. The album was also well-received by fans, who saw the album as a pleasant modernization of his SignatureStyle from the 1970's and a true indicator that Oldfield had returned to form following a roughly-received period between 1984 and 1991 of trying to consolidate his artistic ethos with radio-friendly commercial success. Oldfield would later release a ''Music/TubularBellsIII'' six years after this album, thus turning ''Tubular Bells'' into a prominent sub-series in Oldfield's wide back-catalog.