Tubular Bells

[NMH]

Although I try to discover the better of avant garde, psychedelic, artistic and the more imaginative progressive music - the Mike Oldfield 'Tubular Bells' album was one sound excursion I never really 'got'.

Everyone at my school, seemingly, extolled the virtues of this 'work', and spoke enraptured in its' praises.
"Glockenspeil...." muttered Mr Oldfield, as it shipped millions of units, to the space-odyssey grunting noises of a delighted - or were they really? - record-buying public. It's noticeable that his follow-ups were virtually ignored!

I always held a suspicion for records that were TOO highly rated, TOO well-received. The proof of the pudding had to be eaten a few times without spitting out, before I'd accede to any perceivable merits.

The twitterings of an Edgar Froese (Tangerine Dream), knob-twiddling of a Tomita, or inane effects of a Faust, but is it just, somehow accessible rubbish.

Well, is this album REALLY anything special? Is it just a few ideas plonked together in a shrugging of an engineers hunched shoulders?
An experiment gone right? ....or just an accidental stumbling by a dodgy student, into a massed public perception?

Over to NSC, for those that know the record.
How do/did you perceive 'Tubular Bells'?

 

[Frank Inkerman]

All I know is that a copy of it was given away with the Sunday Telegraph a few weeks ago which either classifies it as a classic or a means that they have a hell of a lot of unsold copies to get rid of.
I suspect the latter having played it.

 

[Scotty Mac]

the only thing i know about it is that it is used in the EXORCIST

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

How do/did you perceive 'Tubular Bells'?

One of these fake-intellectual works of the period to be lumped in with 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' and 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and consigned to the bargain bin of history.

 

[algie]

All I know is that a copy of it was given away with the Sunday Telegraph a few weeks ago which either classifies it as a classic or a means that they have a hell of a lot of unsold copies to get rid of.
I suspect the latter having played it.

Relics.Good album mate

 

[Frank Inkerman]

Re: Re: Tubular Bells

One of these fake-intellectual works of the period to be lumped in with 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' and 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and dumped in the bargain bin of history.

You cannot be serious! - you cannot seriously compare Tubular Bells to 'Dark Side of the Moon' - the latter is a spectacular album which I listen to regularly. It isn't even necessary to listen to the entire album as each track on it's own is superb.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Re: Re: Re: Tubular Bells

It isn't even necessary to listen to the entire album

At least we agree on SOMETHING Frank

 

[Frank Inkerman]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Tubular Bells

At least we agree on SOMETHING Frank

Nice one and a good example of taking part of what's said to distort the intended meaning - you a journalist by any chance?

 

[algie]

Re: Re: Tubular Bells

One of these fake-intellectual works of the period to be lumped in with 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' and 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and consigned to the bargain bin of history.

Utter bollocks you talk

The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the best-selling albums of all time worldwide, and the 20th-best-selling album in the United States. Though it held the ¹1 spot in America for only one week, it spent a record total of 741 consecutive weeks, over fourteen years, on that list until April 23, 1988 only to be removed by a rule change.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Re: Re: Re: Tubular Bells

Utter bollocks you talk

The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the best-selling albums of all time worldwide, and the 20th-best-selling album in the United States. Though it held the ¹1 spot in America for only one week, it spent a record total of 741 consecutive weeks, over fourteen years, on that list until April 23, 1988 only to be removed by a rule change.

Yeah, well, yada, yada, you can fool some of the people some of the time

 

[dougdeep]

I enjoyed it at the time but it sounds sadly dated now, like Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Some people out there must have liked it:

(from Wikipedia)
Tubular Bells stayed in the British charts for over five years, reaching the number 1 spot after more than a year and taking there for one week the place of his second album, Hergest Ridge, thereby becoming one of only three artists in the UK to knock himself off the first spot. It sold more than two million copies in the UK alone and according to some reports 15 to 17 million copies worldwide. The album went gold in the USA and Mike Oldfield received a Grammy Award for the best Instrumental Composition in 1975.

 

[Lady Bracknell]

I've always assumed Tubular Bells was the result of Mr Oldfield failing to change his dealer.

 

[Kenhead]

I like the exorcist bit

 

[Hiney]

Tubular Bells was, and is still, SHIT

 

[Goodfella]

Tubular Bells was, and is still, SHIT

But still better than anything else he did.

 

[Hiney]

But still better than anything else he did.

True

 

[Lady Whistledown]

What, better than Moonlight Shadow even?

 

[Hiney]

What, better than Moonlight Shadow even?

Just

 

[dougdeep]

He did one about Pompey too, don't forget.