{"id":3054,"date":"2024-09-30T15:00:31","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/mike-oldfield-5-decades-of-progressive-rock-mastery\/"},"modified":"2024-09-30T15:00:31","modified_gmt":"2024-09-30T15:00:31","slug":"mike-oldfield-5-decades-of-progressive-rock-mastery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/mike-oldfield-5-decades-of-progressive-rock-mastery\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Oldfield: 5 Decades of Progressive Rock Mastery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n  Back in the early &#8217;70s, a remarkably gifted 19-year-old British musician successfully persuaded recording executives (including a then-struggling Richard Branson) to provide him with studio access. His vision was to create an elaborate extended musical composition which ultimately became known as &#8220;Tubular Bells.&#8221;<br \/>\n <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n  When a segment of the music was utilized for the score of &#8220;The Exorcist,&#8221; the investment yielded substantial returns, propelling the album onto global chart positions and exposing millions to progressive rock as an artistic category.<br \/>\n <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n  Oldfield proceeded to enjoy a fruitful yet understated professional journey, with Branson expressing gratitude for Oldfield\u2019s contribution that brought the Virgin Group its initial significant financial triumph. &#8220;The term &#8216;tubular bells&#8217; wasn\u2019t something I ever imagined would become so pivotal in our story,&#8221; he remarked in 2013. &#8220;Without hiring this specific piece of music, the idea of Virgin venturing into space probably wouldn\u2019t have come about.&#8221;<br \/>\n <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n  Many revised editions and updated versions of Tubular Bells have been released over the years, along with sporadic live concerts. The 50th<br \/>\n  <sup><br \/>\n   th<br \/>\n  <\/sup><br \/>\n  The anniversary tour initially began in 2023 and has since announced an extensive lineup of shows extending through 2025. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that the elusive Oldfield will make personal appearances at these events.<br \/>\n <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n  There are numerous peculiar aspects of Tubular Bells that deserve mention:<br \/>\n <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n  The famous sleeve was created by Trevor Key, who supposedly received only \u00a3100 (approximately EUR 120 or USD 134), yet later contributed to the design of many other prominent albums.<br \/>\n <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   The preliminary title for the album was &#8220;Opus One.&#8221;<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   The album has surpassed sales of 20 million copies.<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   In 1985, Oldfield\u2019s publisher requested a shared writing credit due to similarities with the Paul Hardcastle song &#8220;19.&#8221;<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   The title of the fourth album, \u201cOmmadawn\u201d, is a phonetic spelling of the Gaelic \u201camad\u00e1n\u201d, idiot. The chant that can be heard, &#8220;Amad\u00e1n ag ce\u00f3l&#8221;, means &#8220;Idiot singiing&#8221;.<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   A broad array of equipment was rented for the event; however, the tubular bells were sourced from an earlier John Cale recording session.<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   Unsatisfied with the tone produced, Oldfield opted for a more robust mallet and ended up damaging one of the bells.<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   In 1986, an interactive Commodore 64 edition of the album came out, featuring a sound chip that played a streamlined reinterpretation of the music, enhanced with basic two-dimensional graphics.<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   The American vocalist Tori Amos has often employed the use of<br \/>\n   Tubular Bells<br \/>\n   theme of her live performance.<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   Virgin Airlines named one of their planes &#8220;Tubular Belle.&#8221;<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n   In 2017, Mike created demo recordings for a fourth installment of the Tubular Bells series, which he was unable to complete.<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n  The events scheduled for 2024 and 2025 will span locations throughout the UK and Europe. Additional information can be found here.<br \/>\n  Mike Oldfield tour info<br \/>\n  .<br \/>\n <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<span><br \/>\n  (Michael Leahy. Photo: UMG)<br \/>\n <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<strong><br \/>\n<i><br \/>\n   Make sure to explore all our articles on MSN by subscribing to our content. Simply click on &#8216;follow&#8217; located beside our logo at the top.<br \/>\n  <\/i><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in the early &#8217;70s, a remarkably gifted 19-year-old British musician successfully persuaded recording executives (including a then-struggling Richard Branson) to provide him with studio access. His vision was to create an elaborate extended musical composition which ultimately became known as &#8220;Tubular Bells.&#8221; When a segment of the music was utilized for the score of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[276,1128,277,406,806],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-music-albums","category-music-and-lyrics","category-music-industry","category-rock-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/AA1rtxQ6.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanggraloka.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}