Mike Oldfield

Michael Gordon Oldfield (Reading, United Kingdom, May 15, 1953) is a British musician, composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer. Winner of a Grammy in 1975 for Best Instrumental Composition for the album Tubular Bells released by Virgin Records in 1973.

Biography

Childhood and first musical steps

His father, Raymond Oldfield, acquired a guitar while serving in the British Royal Air Force in Egypt during World War II. Mike recalls how his father "used to play the guitar every Christmas Eve, singing the only song he knew how to play, Danny Boy ." Mike also attributed his early interest in music to seeing guitar virtuoso Bert Weedon as a child: “I saw him on TV when I was seven and immediately convinced my father to buy me my first guitar. In fact, I think if it hadn't been for Bert I would never have become the main thing in my life.

The Oldfields became a family with ties to music: Mike's older brother, Terry Oldfield, is a renowned composer in the field of music for television documentaries, and has several albums on the market; his sister, Sally Oldfield, had a big hit in the early '80s with the vocal track "Mirrors."

By the age of 10, Mike was already composing instrumental pieces for acoustic guitar. The guitar was more than an instrument for him, it was an escape route from a family situation that was getting worse and cutting him off from the outside world for a long time. Throughout that decade, the acoustic music scene had been in very good health, owing to the revival of British folk culture that had taken place in the preceding decades. It was in one of the many clubs dedicated to this movement that young Mike began to realize that his musical virtuosity was liked by the public.

Oldfield recalls: «He had two instrumentals of 15 minutes each that he played in the folk clubs, places where he went through all the styles. He would even totally detune the strings and bend them over the neck and do all kinds of things. As soon as I got vacation from school, I would spend the whole week practicing and playing the guitar." He also tried electric music, playing instrumental pieces by The Shadows in an amateur band.

When Mike turned 13, the Oldfield family moved to Romford, Essex. In 1967 he dropped out of school and together with his sister Sally he formed The Sallyangie, a folk-hippie vocal/guitar duo. They were signed by the Transatlantic company, which released the album Children of the Sun in 1968 and the single "Two Ships" in 1969. Around this time, Mike's guitar playing was heavily influenced by the " Baroque folk” popularized by Pentangle frontman John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. After a year, the end of Sallyangie came.

The Whole World

Mike delved deeper into rock music, forming another short-lived group called Barefoot, with his brother Terry. That led to a job as a bass player in Kevin Ayers & The Whole World. Kevin Ayers had been a founding member of Soft Machine, but left the group in 1968. The following year they released the album Joy of a Toy, which led to a tour in 1970.

Among the members of The Whole World was David Bedford manning keyboards. Bedford, a classically trained composer, struck up a good friendship with Mike, helping him write an early version of what would be his first solo album. While on tour with The Whole World, Mike came into contact with the Centipede, a huge jazz band conducted by Keith Tippett. The wide range of instruments available influenced Mike in the multi-instrumental character that he would later give to his own compositions.

Kevin Ayers & The Whole World recorded two albums, Shooting At The Moon and Whatevershebringswesing, before disbanding in August 1971. By then, Mike had transitioned from bassist to lead guitarist. of the band, and his masterful solos had already earned him a notable reputation.

Between 1971 and 1973, Mike began to sort out the musical ideas that were boiling in his head. Using a four-track recorder Ayers lent him, two tracks one way and the other two the other, he discovered that if he covered the erase head with a piece of cardboard he could record on four tracks. In this way, he could begin to record the necessary ideas to carry out his great project: to create a symphony, similar to the large-scale compositions for orchestra with different movements that could be found in many works of classical music, but using instruments of all kinds. nature, especially belonging to the world of pop-rock. It has been mentioned that Jean Sibelius's Fifth Symphony had a profound influence on him at the time.

With the tape recorder borrowed from Ayers, he slipped into the bedroom of the house he shared with the other members of the group, and ideas for his new job slowly began to take shape. Already involved in the work, Mike decided to play all the instruments himself, and thought that it would not be difficult for him with his natural gift for music to be able to master almost any instrument; from the xylophone to the grand piano, the classical guitar, the Farfisa organ, etc. While still working with Kevin Ayers, he was also helping out on recordings at London's famous Abbey Road Studios, where he had the chance to share some conversations with The Beatles. He soon discovered that the studio had a warehouse full of all sorts of instruments, some of which belonged to the Liverpool quartet, so he would manage to get there early, and while the other studio users arrived, he would experiment with those instruments and he incorporated new sounds and textures into his project. Lost in a job he knew would be revolutionary, he set out to capture in it all the deep emotions he was experiencing as an explorer of an untouched musical field.^{[citation needed]} The The work that he was composing would also be a work that became the vehicle for unloading his deepest emotions, and those with which he was finding it hardest to live.

After creating a first demo, he started going through all the record companies trying to convince someone to support his project. But all the responses she got from the record labels were negative. They all suffered from the lack of commerciality of Oldfield's work and that, if it were ever published, no one would distribute it. After having composed the hypnotic intro — the album's most emblematic melody that would appear on The Exorcist — he kept reminding himself of that: if only he could record, edit and promote it! ^{[citation required]}

The Gestation of Tubular Bells

Copy in vinyl Tubular Bells, the album that launched the starto the musical career of Oldfield and definitely boosted Virgin Records.

A ray of light illuminated Oldfield's future. When Mike left the Kevin Ayers band for good, he occasionally worked as a session guitarist to earn a living. One such job landed him in the backing band for the London production of Hair, the £5-a-night "tribal love-rock musical". He also played bass for a time in a band led by soul singer Arthur Lewis. The group was to record at a recently opened studio in a mansion in Shipton-on-Cherwell, 20 miles from Oxford. The Manor recording studios were built at the time for Richard Branson by Tom Newman, assisted among others by Simon Heyworth. The team assembled at The Manor were good friends, and some of their girlfriends were also there, as well as a cook, cleaners and gardeners. As Mike later commented, "We treated any problems that came up like we were one big family."

The magnificent atmosphere that reigned in the studio and the attitude of Newman and Heyworth gave Mike the opportunity to record a new demo based on the same instrumental developments that he had been handling for some time. Heyworth and Newman were delighted and amazed by Oldfield's range of ideas, and they launched a campaign to persuade Branson to edit it and leave the studio for a while to record it. From the outset it seemed that this was not the appropriate moment; the project had to wait a bit for the arrival of Simon Draper, a businessman who joined Branson, owner of a chain of record stores and both created their own record company: Virgin Records. Draper had extensive musical knowledge, so when he heard Mike's ideas, he immediately supported them.

Mike continued to develop and refine his ideas, to which he could now give a name: Tubular Bells although names like Breakfast in Bed were initially considered. bed), title suggested by Branson himself, and Opus One (Opus 1). By the time the young Oldfield's patience had nearly worn out, Draper offered him a week of study time at The Manor. They brought a wide selection of instruments to the studio and the musician worked against the clock during that week, during which time more of the first part of the album was recorded. The rest emerged during sessions spread over the next few months. From the beginning Mike put the facilities that the technology of the time gave him to the limit to make his recordings; very soon he started using 16 tracks. As more and more instruments were added to the recording, the sessions were also a test of the inventiveness of Newman and Heyworth, who mixed it all to the best of their ability. The studio's equipment was not automated, and all the work was done manually by Mike, as Simon Heyworth and Tom Newman were already using all their fingers on the mixing desk; This made the relationship between producers and artist closer, with which he was able to learn many things from the two producers.

During the sessions, Mike played over 20 instruments and approximately 2,000 test tapes were recorded. The music was performed almost entirely by himself, with the exception of Vivian Stanshall who recorded the voices belonging to the "master of ceremonies", Jon Field who played the flute, Steve Broughton and Mundy Ellis on percussion and vocals, respectively.; Newman and Heyworth were credited as co-producers on the album. When the sessions were over, Branson took the Tubular Bells tapes with him to the MIDEM music industry fair in Cannes in January 1973. An executive from the American company Mercury Records told him: “if you you put lyrics bought it for $ 20,000 ». With no one interested in abiding by the original concept, Branson and Draper decided to put out the album themselves on their new label, Virgin Records.

Tubular Bells was released on May 25, 1973. It emerged from a recording and mixing process that could have been called "pure art".^{[citation needed ]} Critical and public reception was unanimous, calling it a "masterpiece". During the presentation concert, which Mike was about to give up, there was a standing ovation in the Queen Elizabeth Hall to the surprise of the artist, who expected a big boo for the imperfections of the concert.

The British press was stumped. The influential BBC disc-jockey John Peel wrote that it was "a record that genuinely covered new and uncharted territory",^{[citation needed]} with music that combined «logic with surprise, sun with rain». The prestigious music weekly Melody Maker wrote about Tubular Bells that it was "a lengthy work, almost classical in its structure and in the way the theme is established and deftly worked".. Some interviewers even thought they could list Mike's influences: "The texture of Tubular Bells is quite reminiscent of Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Michel Legrand and The Last Night of the Proms," wrote television producer Tony Palmer.

Tubular Bells will always be remembered as a moment in rock music history that captured the hearts and imaginations of many people. It was also a starting point from which to appreciate the many changes and discoveries made by this creator who, from the age of 19, grew in maturity. The album entered the UK charts in July and soon reached the top spot. Subsequently, it was sold massively throughout Europe and was released in the United States, although in that country everything happened more slowly. The necessary push for the album's sales to skyrocket came when film director William Friedkin, encouraged by Richard Branson, decided to use a 4-minute excerpt in the horror film The Exorcist. Mike was not consulted regarding the association of his work with that film, and would later tell reporters that he had not liked it at all. In the UK, a single from Tubular Bells was released with a remixed version of the album in quadrophonic version, a system that required four speakers for full use. To show the wonders of that new system, the Tubular Bells Quad included an extra sequence of an airplane appearing to move around the listener, which was recorded after The Sailor's Hornpipe. .

Musical career

The Virgin Years

Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn

View of Hergest Ridge, where Mike Oldfield moved to isolate and compose his second album after Tubular Bells.

Mike Oldfield had long dreamed of the time when Tubular Bells would be released. When that happened he couldn't take the pressure built up and, emotionally exhausted by the recording process and his own insecurities at the exorbitant fame he was acquiring, he retired to his new home in Herefordshire. It was there that he began creating his new work, which would later take the name of nearby Hergest Ridge.

The symphonic scheme used in Tubular Bells was continued in a series of later works such as the present Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, Incantations, Amarok or Return to Ommadawn. Released in the UK in September 1974, Hergest Ridge was an album containing a single track, divided into two suites by the obvious demands of the LP format. Again almost all the instruments were played by Oldfield himself. The most talked about effect on the record was what one reviewer called "electrical storm", a segment on side B in which multiple distorted electric guitars were played simultaneously. Oldfield's own sister, Sally Oldfield participated in the album presenting her voice in some fragments. For the Reading musician, musical composition was a constant work in progress governed by logical or emotional laws, as if it were a cubist painting.

The album jumped straight to number one on the UK charts, unseating his own Tubular Bells, still a rare feat to this day. Virgin also promoted it on television, although the tagline had to be changed for this purpose. The ad originally said the album was available at "Virgin and other immaculate record stores" and had to be amended due to potential objections from the Catholic Church. Although some critics viewed Hergest Ridge as inferior to Tubular Bells, most gave their approval. One reviewer called it "the most everyday rock music, with a bit of classical symphony", while another wrote that it was "a series of emotional spikes exploding here and there through a tickling stillness".^{[citation needed]} However, its elegant pastoral tone, as well as its accurate instrumentation, made it a very important record in Oldfield's career.

In December 1974 the orchestral versions of Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge were presented in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert was organized by David Bedford, who conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with guitar solos by Steve Hillage. Oldfield himself played guitar on the studio version of the first composition, which was released in January 1975 under the name The Orchestral Tubular Bells. The limited commercial impact of the album led the company to avoid publishing The Orchestral Hergest Ridge. Later that same year, these same orchestral arrangements were presented in concerts in Glasgow and Newcastle. In Scotland Hillage played guitar parts with the Scottish National Orchestra, and the soloist in the North East was Andy Summers, later a member of The Police.

The sense of humor that often surrounded some fragments of Oldfield's works was noteworthy in Don Alfonso, a single that was released in March 1975; With the help of Chris Cutler, David Bedford and Kevin Ayers, Oldfield told the story of a comedian bullfighter who worked for Oxo.

Ommadawn, released in September 1975, was his third instrumental symphonic rock opus; It took him nine months to record and he played about twenty instruments: from guitars to grand piano and spinet. The album incorporated African music and Irish music, for which it featured the African percussion group Jabula and the Irish bagpipes of Paddy Moloney, leader of The Chieftains. Other contributing artists included Terry and Sally Oldfield, members of the Hereford City Band, and recorder soloist Leslie Penning. Penning also accompanied Oldfield on that year's Christmas single, a version of the traditional Christmas carol "In Dulci Jubilo" which managed to reach fourth place in the UK charts. From then on and for several years, Oldfield released a regular Christmas single. It exceeded 4 million albums sold worldwide.

The album was criticized and praised in equal measure, although the passage of time has placed it among the most mature of his symphonic stage. His production was more elaborate than in his previous works, with careful transitions between the melodies of the first part. In addition, Oldfield consolidated his facet as a multi-instrumentalist in this particular work, where he would play almost twenty instruments such as electric and acoustic bass, electric and acoustic guitar, banjo, bouzouki, bodhrán, guitar Spanish, the keyboards, the glockenspiel, the harp, the mandolin, the percussions, the piano, the spinet, the steel guitar, the synthesizers and the bass guitars, as well as his own voice. The work breathes Celtic and African influences, and can be considered a clear precedent of the so-called World music.^{[citation required]} The original work contains a third unspecified cut on the sleeve, a vocal piece composed by Oldfield and William Murray entitled "On Horseback" which appeared on a single in December 1985 as a B-side to "In Dulci Jubilo", where Oldfield himself sings accompanied by a children's choir

With the publication of Ommadawn many veteran musicians began to take an interest in the musical career of the Reading musician and, to this day, it is considered his magnum opus, surpassing his previous Tubular Bells.^{[citation needed]} Oldfield himself presented his sequel Return to Ommadawn in 2017 at the request of his fans, whom the musician questioned on his social networks for his most beloved work of his entire career.^{[citation required]}

Incantations and Platinum

The Pregonda cove was covered by its fourth album Incantations.

In 1975, Oldfield collaborated on albums by other musicians associated with him such as David Bedford, Edgar Broughton and Tom Newman, at the same time that the impact of Tubular Bells continued in crescendo i>. During that year Oldfield was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition.

At this time, Oldfield released "Portsmouth," another traditional song that peaked at number three, one above "In Dulci Jubilo." Between 1976 and 1978 Oldfield, due to psychological problems that he carried from far behind, was confined to his home in Gloucestershire. There he began the efforts that would end with the publication of Incantations . In that time impasse, Virgin released the quadruple album Boxed, a collector's set that contained their three albums released to date and a fourth disc that contained singles, special collaborations on records by other artists, and a strange song sung by Mike himself. and David Bedford called "Speak (Tho' You Only Say Farewell)."

In January 1977, Mike made his first stage appearance in two and a half years, as a guest guitarist in a live performance of David Bedford's suite titled The Odyssey based on the play. of Homer. This was followed by the almost simultaneous release of two singles: one was a cover of Rossini's "The William Tell Overture" and the other "Cuckoo Song", another arrangement of a traditional English folk song although neither had too successful.

Following a live concert by Ommadawn, Oldfield's fourth album Incantations was released, released in late 1978. In the years after Ommadawn, symphonic rock and its grandiloquence had lost worldwide interest due to the arrival of punk music, much more accessible to a youth that demanded idols at the height of their own personal possibilities, and with nothing to do with super bands of musical geniuses like Pink Floyd or Genesis. Within his own country, punk had a negative impact on Oldfield. When asked what he thought of that trend, he replied: "Punk rock ? I never heard of it." Perhaps because of all this, Incantations was a bit out of tune. It was Oldfield's first double LP, and consisted of four suites with different movements, again drawing from Celtic and ethnic sounds to which was added a legendary atmosphere, heightened by long ritual chants. ^{[citation required]}

The change of atmosphere with respect to his other works, this much more complex, hypnotic and rhythmic, influenced in part by the current of world music and the minimalism that composers like Philip Glass were doing, Terey Riley, Win Mertens, Michael Nyman and Vangelis, made him less successful than his predecessors. It reached number 14 on the British charts and stayed in the UK Top 20 for a while.

At this time, Oldfield gave numerous interviews to promote the album and discuss his radical change in personality, brought about mainly by attending seminars based on exegesis, a controversial therapy designed to improve self-confidence. Thanks to exegesis, he believed he had discovered the most positive side of his character. In an interview at the time, he said, literally, that he had experienced what he might describe as a "rebirth," helping him to delve deeper into myself and human nature. The image on the cover was taken from the beaches of Ibiza, in front of the island of Es Vedrá —a place that, in later years, he would use again as his habitual residence.

In March 1979 he released the single "Guilty", whose sound was quite close to that of popular music. Some journalists detected a certain disco style in that piece recorded with studio musicians in New York. Although he was already an undisputed master of studio recording, live concerts had also been an important part of Oldfield's artistic life since his early days. After the therapy he underwent in the late '70s, he felt ready to tour with a large group of musicians; this resulted in the Exposed tour, also known as the Tubular Shows. The first international tour that Mike Oldfield embarked on took place in 1979, almost six years after the release of Tubular Bells. The expensive show was made up of an orchestra and a choir of 50 musicians, including girls belonging to the Queen's College Girls Choir. He had an entourage of 25 people including roadies and technicians and three trailers to transport all the equipment. Director Ian Eames created three films that played in the background during the concerts.

The tour started in Spain and then went through Belgium, France, Holland and Germany. In August, Virgin released Exposed, a double live album recorded on tour. In the years that followed, Mike revealed that that adventure was a financial disaster, with a million pounds in debt, which he covered in part with the release of the tour album, and settled it with the accelerated release of Platinum.

Platinum broke with the pattern of their first four albums, structured in long tracks without clear divisions between their movements. The composition of this was divided into four segments, which are followed by short and instrumental songs, with a certain experimental and playful desire. Among the songs on Platinum , "Punkadiddle" stood out, with which Oldfield wanted to ridicule the punk movement.

As a Christmas single, Oldfield released Blue Peter, an adaptation of a traditional song, used in this case as a theme song for a children's program of the same name. The single reached number 19 in the UK charts. The royalties were donated to the Cambodia relief campaign launched by that children's program.

In the spring of 1980, Oldfield assembled an eleven-piece group for another 40-day tour of Europe, with a show that played Platinum songs. Such live shows culminated in a performance to 43,000 people at the Knebworth Fairy Park Festival on June 21, 1980. Following his arrival by helicopter, he played after The Beach Boys, Lindisfarne and Santana. A reporter from the Record Mirror noted Oldfield's excellent performance by noting the "crystal-clear sound" of him.^{[citation needed]}

QE2 and Five Miles Out

Pyper PA-31 Navajo model in which Oldfield almost loses his life by piloting it on the Pyrenees; this plane model would illustrate the cover of the Pyrenees. Five Miles Out.

In keeping with the new status, Oldfield released two covers as singles in the fall of 1980. The first was "Arrival," an ABBA song paying homage to them. The other single was one of those tribute songs, "Wonderful Land," a recreation of a 1962 song by The Shadows, whose frontman Hank Marvin inspired all the young guitarists of Oldfield's generation. Likewise, the one from Reading was also influenced from a young age by the multi-instrumentalists John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. Oldield spent hours analyzing and learning from his music, and during this process he developed a formidable guitar technique.

“Arrival” and “Wonderful Land” appeared on QE2, an album similar to Platinum in structure but originally to be called Carnival .^{[citation needed]} This time the title track is not on side A of the disc, but appears at the end of side B QE2 was co-produced and mixed by engineer David Hentschel, who had previously worked with Genesis. Hentschel told a reporter: "I always liked Mike's character. All of his ideas served as a refresher for mine, and I think mine were for him as well. It was all a lot of fun, and I think if you want to do really good work, you have to have fun doing it." Phil Collins on percussion, Rick Fenn on guitar and Maggie Reilly on vocals all contributed to the recording of QE2. From then on, Reilly went on to become one of the most important members of Mike's team over the next five years.

Criticism towards QE2 was of all kinds, with some of the die-hard fans in the press saying that more than having presented new ideas, with that album he had marked the beginning of an era. However, there were Oldfield fans who wrote to music magazines saying they were surprised by the general critical response; one wrote to the Record Mirror to complain about critics who "had no idea of his true greatness".^{[citation needed]} The tours were already becoming an annual event; in 1981 for Europe, the one from Reading brought a smaller number of musicians, whose core consisted of Maggie Reilly, Tim Cross on keyboards, Rick Fenn on bass and percussionists Morris Pert and Mike Frye.

If their most recent records hadn't been on the charts for very long, the "Tubular Bells phenomenon" continued. In July 1981, Virgin announced the sale of ten million copies.^{[citation needed]} In the same month, Oldfield played a free concert as part of the festivities organized through the city of London for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. In recognition of this and his merits in raising awareness of the UK beyond its borders, he was awarded the Freedom of the City Of London. He was also part, along with Billy Idol, Phil Linott and Noddy Holder, on a jury for a national contest for young pop groups. He was also included in the Who's Who , the exclusive guide to the most important people in the United Kingdom, with him and Paul McCartney being the only pop musicians to appear there.

Oldfield had gotten his aviation license some time ago. A bad aerial experience flying over the Pyrenees, which could have caused his death, was what inspired the song that gives the title to the album Five Miles Out published in 1982. Oldfield himself recalls in an interview with The time:

We were thrown like a flour pancake, there was ice accumulating in the propellers and rain in the windshield, and everyone shouted "aaargh!"

That incident would be commemorated with a painting specially commissioned by the musician from a renowned painter of airplane paintings.^{[citation needed]} Like Platinum and QE2, Five Miles Out combined a full-length track with a series of individual songs. The longest piece was the instrumental Taurus II, which included contributions from piper Paddy Moloney and a Morris dance troupe. Songs included Family Man, featuring lead vocals by Maggie Reilly. When Family Man was released as a single, it moved to the bottom of the UK charts. Paradoxically, a version of Daryl Hall & John Oates was a Top 10 Hit in the United States the following year. Much of the album was recorded in the studio installed in Oldfield's own home in Buckinghamshire, thus chosen due to the proximity of the accesses to London and a small local airport where he could fly his planes.

Five Miles Out was Oldfield's biggest UK hit since Ommadawn, despite unfavorable reviews. His single "Mistake" was called "mid-'70s arena rock."^{[citation needed]} Another reviewer said that "Oldfield kept fooling around with himself without ton nor are". When asked by a reporter from New Musical Express about his "hatred of animals", Oldfield replied:

Possibly I hate your periodic decrepit more than anything in this world.

In the same post, he commented that his favorite movie was 2001: A Space Odyssey and that his heroes were Jean Sibelius and Captain Kirk from the science fiction series, Star Trek.

In 1982 Mike undertook his longest tour to date, playing in Europe and North America. For his world tour he put together a new group, backed by Maggie Reilly and ex-Gong percussionist Pierre Moerlen, as well as two keyboardists. The London concert was sympathetically reviewed by Ray Coleman in the Daily Express, who described the audience as "young newlywed couples looking to sit somewhere comfortable and spend the night listening to music."^{[citation required]}

Crises, Discovery and The Killing Fields

"Moonlight Shadow" is considered the particular choice that Oldfield composed after the murder of the musician John Lennon in the image.

May 1983 was the tenth anniversary of the release of Tubular Bells. Virgin announced that their sales continued to rise and that they were considering the possibility of making a "continuation" of that album, something that the artist himself ended up denying. Oldfield released his eighth album, Crises playing a huge concert in July at London's Wembley Stadium. Musicians accompanying him at this event included former Roxy Music drummer Simon Phillips and former Toyah bassist Phil Spalding.

Crises was the first album recorded with Phillips as co-producer. Its vocalists were Jon Anderson of Yes and Roger Chapman of Family. Likewise, Maggie Reilly sang on several of the songs, among them was "Moonlight Shadow" which was understood by all as a tribute to the then recently deceased John Lennon, becoming Oldfield's most successful single in his entire artistic career. In Spain it was triple platinum and quintuple platinum in Germany. It was also one of the most representative songs of the eighties. Reilly's voice was decisive in the commercial success of the song, being often considered as "the voice" of Oldfield himself.^{[citation needed]} Taking advantage of the promotion of Crises, Virgin once again declared their intentions to make a sequel to Tubular Bells for their tenth anniversary, thus taking advantage of the popularity Crises was gaining.

The 1984 album Discovery was Oldfield's first recording outside of England. For this he built a studio in a house 2,000 meters on a mountain in the Swiss Alps overlooking Lake Geneva and where, together with Phillips, he co-produced a new selection of songs and an instrumental titled The Lake . This time, the task of voicing the songs was shared between Maggie Reilly and Barry Palmer. During the recording of the album, Palmer suffered from throat problems, impossible to solve in the time they had for the recording of the album, so it stayed that way forever, making it impossible to reproduce those tones of voice later. Among the songs on the album, "To France" stands out, inspired by the life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Although it only achieved moderate success in England, throughout Europe it was a great success.

By this time, Oldfield's skills as a rock guitarist were winning over a large number of heavy music fans. In the heavyweight magazine Kerrang!, veteran journalist Chris Welch enthusiastically quoted words from the Greek Thucydides in praise of Discovery. The album's European tour totaled 50 concerts that brought Oldfield, Reilly, Phillips, Spalding and Palmer back together.

During 1984, Oldfield composed the soundtrack for Roland Joffé's critically acclaimed film The Killing Fields, which dealt with about the Cambodian civil war.^{[citation needed]} The musician stated that it was difficult for him to make music for a film in which so many emotions were captured.^{[citation needed]} To compose it, he used a video synchronizer connected to his Fairlight. Much of it is based on the ethnic music of Cambodia. The main theme of the film, "Étude", was an adaptation of a song by Francisco Tárrega: "Recuerdos de la Alhambra".

First compilation and Islands

Bali Island Beach, place that inspired Oldfield the music of the album Islands.

In 1985, Virgin released a compilation of material from Oldfield's twelve-year career with the record label and released a double album called The Complete. One of its four parts was dedicated to live recordings from tours of the previous five years; this included his outstanding playing on guitar on the Platinum tour at the 1980 Hanover concert.

At that time, Oldfield's interests moved closer to the use of video for the creation of his musical works. To do this, he equipped his home-studio with a Quantel Mirage computer with which he generated the images for the "Pictures In The Dark" video. With vocalists Barry Palmer, Anita Hegerland and 15-year-old soprano Aled Jones, he conceived a video single which he released in December 1985. Oldfield purchased seven synthesizers; His working methods were diametrically opposed to those of musicians who dedicated themselves solely to sampling extracts from other people's records. In this regard, Oldfield stated:

I have a lot of samples I normally dedicate a time at the end of each session to record the instruments I used.

But in a later interview he explained his preference for real instruments over synthesized instruments:

What I object to is making music only with computers. It's like you take some sophisticated kind of piano or barrel organ. They lack a soul.

During 1986, the musician concentrated on creating a video-album that was released in October 1988 on VHS and Laserdisc formats entitled Wind Chimes. Among his collaborators was Alex Proyas —director of El cuervo or Dark City , who had also directed a video clip for the famous Australian band, Crowed House. The album that accompanied Wind Chimes was Islands released in September 1987. The two-part instrumental piece Wind Chimes was inspired by music from Bali, an island that Oldfield had recently visited. Musicians Kevin Ayers, Andy Mackay, Geoff Downes, as well as vocalists Bonnie Tyler and Anita Hegerland, collaborated on the Islands recordings.

Latest jobs with Virgin

In 1989, Oldfield created a seven-minute version of Tubular Bells for a BBC programme. Despite the fact that Richard Branson had been pressuring the Reading musician since 1982 to make the sequel to Tubular Bells , Oldfield prepared an all-vocal album with seven different vocalists that he called Earth Moving

The follow-up to Earth Moving was an all-instrumental record with a single, hour-long track. It was titled Amarok, released in 1990, and was conceived as Oldfield's personal vendetta against Branson and the Virgin executives, who did not want to release a symphonic record for him unless it was called Tubular Bells II. Throughout the symphony there was a whole series of morse keys where Oldfield criticized Virgin and insulted Branson with the sole intention of, in his own words: "to annoy the rich record company executives who go in his Ferrari". This was a return to the format that made it popular with Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge, and Ommadawn. Amarok reunited Oldfield and Tom Newman, the sound engineer of Tubular Bells. This one piece was a sort of English folk music, Flemish music and African music, marrying the latest music and studio technology with classical Oldfield technology. Amarok was one of the longest theme songs ever released, considered by many of his fans to be his best work along with Ommadawn .

Heaven's Open was released in 1991, with a structure similar to that of Platinum: a long composition and some songs. For the first time, all songs were sung by Oldfield—credited on this occasion as "Michael Oldfield"—without any other backing vocalists. Regarding this aspect, in an interview he stated:

I unravel much better now with my voice. It has been a real pleasure for me to discover that it was not as bad to sing as I had thought.

This is a record that, on the one hand, exudes the hope and illusion of the new stage that opened in Oldfield's career and, on the other, it shows the pain that the company had put him through. The long, instrumental piece on the album was titled "Music From The Balcony", an experimental work full of cacophonies, which many say is badly done on purpose as a final revenge against Virgin.^{[citation required ]}

The years with Warner

With the WEA label, owned by Warner Music, Oldfield released seven studio albums.

Tubular Bells II

Predictably, the expectations that WEA (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic), Oldfield's new label, placed on Tubular Bells II were not disappointed; Edited in 1992 being a resounding sales success. It exceeded 1.5 million albums sold, which in 2002 was already close to 3.5 million copies. The release of the album was accompanied by an extensive tour of Europe and North America, where he had not performed for a long time. Likewise, Warner executives placed famed producer Trevor Horn under Oldfield's orders. For some time now, the man from Reading told the media that he was thinking of doing a reissue of Tubular Bells with ideas that had been left unanswered on the first album. Oldfield thought it would be a good idea to release it with his new company, which in turn had promised the musician freedom of movement and a promotion of his album in North America, a market where Virgin had not been able to enter.

The album cover was entrusted to Trevor Key, the same artist who designed the original; The result was a bell folded into three parts, very similar to the original, this time in yellow floating on a navy blue background that enhances the shape of the bell.

Tubular Bells II is essentially very similar to its predecessor Tubular Bells. In fact, there are parts that are totally analogous between both albums. That is to say, there is a piano sequence that introduces the first part, just like in the original; we also find a reflection of the fragment of the Piltdown man or "the man of the caves" that we can hear in the original. In addition, the sequence at the end of the first part is very similar in which the "master of ceremonies" introduces the different instruments that appear after being mentioned - this time the role fell to the prestigious British actor Alan Rickman.

However, this album is not entirely identical to its predecessor despite having the same structure, because while the passages of the original tend to be dark and melancholic, those of Tubular Bells II tend to be more cheerful and dynamic.^{[citation needed]} Three singles appeared from the album: Sentinel, Tattoo and The Bell. Of the latter there are about six versions with different masters of ceremonies, announcing the instruments in different languages. Carlos Finaly, host of Cadena 100, was the one who provided the voice in Spanish for said track.

The live presentation of Tubular Bells II was made on the esplanade in front of the castle of Edinburgh (Scotland) —although, at first, such a presentation was planned to be made in Seville—^{[citation required]} It reached number 1 in Spain, obtaining a platinum record fivefold. It was also number one in the UK and the third time Oldfield had reached the top of the charts in his home country. It was also fifth on the 1992 new age album chart.

The Songs Of Distant Earth and Voyager

View of Mount Saint-Michel that inspired a homonymous composition contained in the disc Voyagerpublished in 1996.

After two years savoring the success of Tubular Bells II, at the end of 1994, Oldfield challenged his audience with something that would be a true challenge for certain sensibilities. The musician presented an album almost entirely made with synthesizers, loops and drum machines. While some were disappointed hoping for an album closer to the sound that would make him popular as Hergest Ridge or Ommadawn , on the contrary, others praised him as one of the best works of him. The album was entitled The Songs Of Distant Earth, and was an electronic symphony evoked by reading the homonymous book by Arthur C. Clarke, the same author of 2001: A Space Odyssey , Oldfield's favorite film. Said book begins with the end of the Solar System and deals with how the human being looks for a new place in the universe to implant his civilization. Although the album is divided into 17 tracks, the last chords of each track link to the next, thus creating a true musical epic. Of note, from the first cut, are the words pronounced by astronaut William Anders aboard Apollo 8 extracted from Genesis, referring to the creation of the Universe cited in the Bible. The commercial single from this album was the song "Let There Be Light". The video clip revealed Oldfield's great interest in 3D design and new technologies, since he included fantastic characters, places or situations created by computer in almost all his shots. These effects were pioneers for his time, although they were not paid much attention. In addition, the CD-ROM version had an innovative element: it was the first disc released for sale on the music market that included a data track for use on a personal computer. Oldfield chose to do it the technology offered by the MacOS system at that time.

The Balearic island of Es Vedra decoded the cover of Voyager.

In 1996 Voyager came out, an album with which the musician wanted to get closer to the Celtic roots that influenced records such as Ommadawn and Hergest Ridge. The album was composed of new short songs in which good use is made of electric guitar and other elements of traditional symphonic rock accompanied by effects made with a synthesizer. The last track was the only composition of more than 10 minutes he did in his stage with WEA. It was an orchestral composition entitled «Mont St.Michel». On the album there are several versions of traditional songs such as "The Woman of Ireland" which contains a version of "O son do ar" ("The Song of the Sun") by Luar na Lubre with Rosa Cedrón. During the period in which the album was recorded, Oldfield himself bought a house in Ibiza with views of the sea to, as he said, "seek union with the elements" and relax. Oldfield also took advantage of the festive atmosphere of Ibiza to stay up all night in many clubs on the island. He even starred in an incident one day when he was driving back drunk in his Mercedes that crashed into a tree. Voyager was nominated for the 1998 Grammy Awards for Best New Age Music Album, competing in this category alongside Oracle by the late Michael Hedges., winning the latter posthumously. Also nominated in this category were Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! by Enigma, Oceanic by Vangelis and Canyon Lullaby by Paul Winter.

Tubular Bells III

Bells III Tubular was composed on the island of Ibiza, in the image a view of the island from satellite.

In 1998, the musician released the third part of his popular album Tubular Bells, which had already been sampled on the XXV compilation, although the album version was different. Although the previous two Tubular Bells had a structure divided into two parts —with several cuts in Tubular Bells II—, in Tubular Bells III the song "Man in the Rain" was included, which divided the two parts, also made up of several independent cuts although armed with each other. He singled out the concluding track for the record titled "Far Above The Clouds," in which Oldfield chose his ten-year-old daughter Greta Marie as emcee. With this album, the man from Reading wanted to capture his frustrations that he suffered during his stay in Ibiza, although "Far Above The Clouds" symbolized the return to peace, adding the song of the birds at the end of the album.^{[ citation required]}

The performance took place at London's Horse Guards Parade on September 4, 1998 next to the royal Buckingham Palace in persistent rain and a mid-show blackout. The concert featured Pepsi Demacque, a singer who seemed to be his new muse—much like Maggie Reilly during the 1980s. However, Oldfield's fans, perhaps comparing her directly to Reilly, began to split on her views on her.^{[citation needed ]}

Cover design was done by infographic design studio, Bill Smith's Studio, and was based on previous designs by Trevor Key, who passed away a few years ago. Oldfield received the Ondas Award, given by the Spanish journalist Iñaki Gabilondo, for musical career and for Best Instrumental Composition. He received four platinum records, for the sales of Tubular Bells III in Spain. Its global reception, although less than the previous edition, was quite acceptable, surpassing 1.3 million copies sold. Curiously, his techno approach allowed him to be recognized and accepted in the electronic music and chillout circuits in raves and Spanish and European clubs.^{[citation required]}

Guitars and Then & Now Tour Life

The Danelectro guitar one of the two electric guitars that Oldfield used during the production of his album Guitars of 1999.

Guitars, released in 1999, was an experimental album in which all the instruments heard were played by guitars. This was made possible by MIDI pickups in which the vibration of an actual guitar string is transformed into computer commands that are sent to the synthesizer or sampler to play whatever other previously selected instrument. Thanks to this, Oldfield was able to include percussion, wind instruments, synthesizers and absolutely everything he could think of just playing guitars. Guitars was not a very well-received album by the Reading musician's fans.^{[citation needed]} For its production, Oldfield basically used two electric guitars, the Danelectro and the electric sitar.

Shortly after the album was released, he embarked on a tour that took him all over Europe. It was called Live Then & Now Tour and in it he played songs from the album Guitars and Tubular Bells III, but he also reviewed previous pieces, such as some songs from Songs Of Distant Earth, and their hit singles "Shadow on the Wall" and "Moonlight Shadow" sung by Pepsi Demacque. The tour was opened by the Galician group Luar na Lubre, whose singer and cellist, Rosa Cedrón, already knew Oldfield after having sung for him on the song "The Inner Child" from the album Tubular Bells III. In addition, the composer of this group, Bieito Romero, was the one who composed the original theme on which he based himself to compose "The Song of the Sun" that appears on his album Voyager from 1996.

The Millennium Bell

Monument of Siegessäulevenue The Millennium Bell during the dawn of the new millennium.

Already at the time of the promotion of his album Guitars, Oldfield acknowledged in some interviews that he was involved in the composition of an album that would be a tribute to the 2000 years of history elapsed since the birth of Christ. At the end of 1999, WEA launched The Millennium Bell on the market. The cover said a lot about the album's concept: a bent bell, as usual, floating among an amalgamation of objects such as planets, guitars, swords, butterflies, astronauts, Dalí's famous melted clock, and a few other things. The cover was designed by the infographic company Blue Cactus.

With The Millennium Bell, Oldfield wanted to give a musical overview, not only of two thousand years of human history, but also of many styles with which he seems to want to demonstrate that, apart from dominating most instruments, he also mastered many other musical styles. For example, the album contains styles as varied as Christmas music, tribal music from Central America, the rondò veneziano, gospel, orchestral music, and so on. To commemorate the discovery of America, he wanted to put on the album Santa María, a track very similar in style to one that Vangelis already did in his day for the soundtrack of the film 1492, La Conquista Del Paraíso.^{[citation needed]} "Amber Light" was a song expressly composed to commemorate the arrival of the dawn of the new millennium. They were joined by two different choirs singing along along with Miryam Stockley, David Serame and Nicola Emmanuel who were the lead vocals. An attempt was made to make a version of this theme with the special collaboration of Nelson Mandela, who would quote the introductory words, but Mandela's numerous commitments prevented it. "The Millennium Bell", the almost eight-minute song, is a review of all the songs on the album, as a reprise.

The concert was presented at the Victory Column in Berlin, about 300 meters from the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the arrival of the new millennium. It is estimated that close to a million people were present there. Oldfield wanted to commemorate that occasion with the creation of the theme "Berlin 2000", which served to end the concert.

Tr3s moons and Tubular Bells 2003

After the Berlin concert of The Millennium Bell, Oldfield devoted himself entirely to creating a musical virtual reality game originally called Sonic Reality and later changed its name to Music VR. Its release was initially set for September 2000, although it was postponed until it came out to accompany the album Tr3s Lunas, released on June 3, 2002. Tr3s Lunas was edited by WEA, but not by the multinational itself, as had happened since Tubular Bells II, but by the subsidiary WEA Music Spain; this was the first of a three more record deal with this WEA affiliate.

The record company launched an intense marketing campaign, with abundant advertisements on national television and on the radio. In this campaign, the music contained was cataloged as chillout, despite Oldfield's continuous rejection of that term. In an interview conducted on the occasion of the release of Tubular Bells III he even said: “if I wanted to make relaxing music, I would leave the disc empty”.^{[citation needed]}

The presentation of the album as well as the virtual reality game was held at the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, and included a chillout party at L'Hemisfèric. More than 200,000 copies of the album were sold in Spain alone, similar figures in Germany and other countries. Despite the controversy surrounding the album, it was a record of notable commercial success.^{[citation needed]} For this new album, Oldfield opted for a much more ethereal music, supported by melodies soft and in an electronic instrumentation. His usual guitars and his vaporous keyboards were not lacking. The album's sung theme was titled "To Be Free" and was performed by Jude Sim.

In 2003 he published Tubular Bells 2003, a re-recording of his successful Tubular Bells with the technology of that time. According to Oldfield, there were many mistakes in the original recording that the remastered versions failed to avoid. The voices of Vivian Stanshall were also replaced by that of ex-Monty Python, John Cleese. This album was a relative success, selling just over 50,000 copies in Spain. After this, the musician dedicated himself to the DVD version of Tubular Bells 2003 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. When it was released, the LP also contained the original demos of the 1971 Tubular Bells. 5.1, but in March 2004 he released a new virtual reality video game titled, Maestro.

The Mercury Years

Left: concert at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao Music of the Sphereswhere you can appreciate Oldfield in the center playing the Spanish guitar. Right: Mike Oldfield, playing during 2006 during one of the Night of the Proms concerts.

In May 2005, Mike Oldfield announced that he was in the middle of recording a new album originally called “Quicksilver”, the working title of which was Light + Shade. Despite still having to contractually edit one last album with Warner Spain, Oldfield left his third album with them unreleased and signed with Universal Music, a record company that took over the entire Virgin Records catalog in 2008.

During the following months, more information about the album was released, apart from new photos of the musician appearing on the occasion of the release of Light and Shade. Oldfield offered two discs instead of one; the first, called Light, which consisted of relaxing songs with sounds close to chillout; the second, called Shade, with somewhat darker and dance songs.

The double album was released on September 26 in Spain, reaching number 9 on the state charts. The promotion was very disappointing: a single 10-second ad, rarely seen on television, and an interview done at his home distributed commercially. As a single, which was not released, "Surfing" was released. In England, the edition that was marketed, apart from carrying the eight cuts per disc, brought an extra song per disc. In addition, a week later another song appeared on the internet, closer to the folk style of its beginnings.

In March 2006, Virgin released a new three-CD compilation, The Platinum Collection, featuring Oldfield's classic tracks, notable for being the first digital edition of extended versions of some of his hits from the 80s. That same year, and after almost seven years of absence from the stage, Oldfield participated in the Night of the Proms tour through different German cities, together with artists such as OMD, John Miles, among others. In 2007 he performed in Spanish cities like Madrid and Valencia as the main figure of the first Night of the Proms celebration in Spain.

As of 2007, Oldfield was still with Universal Music, stating in numerous promotional interviews that he was working towards making his next work "old-fashioned" instrumental, divided into sections and with real instruments, instead of samplers used in his latest works. The project was called Music of the Spheres and it was a classical work, with the collaboration of Karl Jenkins in which the man from Reading played the Spanish guitar, the acoustic and the piano. The album was recorded at the prestigious Abbey Road Studios in London.

Initially the album was going to be published in November 2007, however personal issues delayed the date until January 2008, and then until March of the same year. The reason for the new delay was to be able to properly promote the album, which Oldfield did not want to do until some time had passed since the birth of his new child. Even with the somewhat distant release date, in September 2007 the album was already available on various exchange networks. In turn, in 2007, Virgin Books published Changeling: The Autobiography, the official autobiography written by Oldfield himself.

Finally, in March 2008, Oldfield premiered Music of the Spheres in the atrium of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. This concert, in which she played together with the Euskadi Symphony Orchestra and the Bilbao Choral Society, served as the world premiere of his latest album, Music of the Spheres. The concert, closed to the public, was recorded and made available on the internet, starting the week after its presentation, through iTunes. Along with Oldfield's guitar, 112 musicians and an all-female choir performed in the atrium.

The album, like other purely instrumental works such as Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge or Ommadawn, consisted of two extra parts. 20 minutes long each. It was written to be performed by a symphony orchestra along with a grand piano, a chorus, a soprano, and a classical guitar played by Oldfield himself. The work was limited to musical romanticism, very much in line with previous works such as Hergest Ridge or Incantations.^{[citation required]} In this work the classic Oldfian sounds abounded: minimalist melodies, changes of harmonic textures and melodic tone. It is a harmonious work and very pleasant to the ear, with a very appreciable ancestral tone. He won the Grammy in 2008 for Best Classical Music Composition.

Reissues and Olympics 2012

In April 2008, he temporarily retired from music. His dedication was to dedicate himself to his family. In 2010, Mercury Records, under the Universal label, began reissuing and remixing their great albums from the 1970s, incorporating unpublished material and concerts from the 1980s into the reissues, of great interest to their fans.

In addition, he collaborated with various artists and on several albums such as Amazon Tribe, an album with the soundtrack of a television show hosted by Bruce Parry. He also collaborated with the electronic music group York on a song for their album Islanders and with his brother Terry Oldfield on her album Journey Into Space where he participated in three topics.

However, Oldfield did not return to full productivity until the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, an event for which he collaborated with Danny Boyle to create a new 12-minute version of his well-known Tubular Bells with the final addition of "In Dulci Jubilo" and a piano solo. He introduced it at the televised event to millions of viewers. As a result, new Oldfield compilations called Two Sides: The Very Best Of Mike Oldfield, Classic Album Selection (Six Albums 1973-1980) and Music From The Opening Ceremony. During the ceremony, it was announced that the album Tubular Bells reached the official figure of 29 million copies sold worldwide that year, reaching number 6 on the British charts.

The return to Virgin/EMI

Luke Spiller, singer of the band The Struts (in the picture during a 2019 concert) was chosen by Oldfield to play the vocal part of his album Man On The Rocks.

After his collaboration at the opening of the 2012 Olympics, Oldfield re-signed with his lifelong record company: Virgin Records, which had been absorbed in 1992 by EMI. The artist returned to give interviews and talked about a new album that was released in March 2014. The album was basically rock style mixed with some other musical subgenres. For the recording of this album, entitled Man On The Rocks, he once again hired his personal assistant, Caroline Monk, with whom he had already worked in the late 90s. The songs that formed it were eminently rockers., in which the musician contributed his already legendary electric guitars. All the songs are performed by Luke Spiller, singer of the English band The Struts. The songs are a mixture of rock music, pop music and some even contain sounds close to folk and electronic music.^{[citation required >]} In addition, a personal version of the religious song "I Give Myself Away" by musician William McDowell was included. In the deluxe edition, Oldfield included the instrumental versions of all the songs and demos performed by himself.

At the end of 2015, Oldfield began to advertise a new instrumental album similar to his most legendary works on his social networks. This album was based on a previous work highly appreciated by his followers: Ommadawn and was entitled Return to Ommadawn . Composed with his usual guitars, keyboards and percussion, the album featured two long parts of folk cut. After overcoming some technical difficulties due to the passage of Hurricane Matthew through the Bahamas Islands, the album went on sale on January 20, 2017. In general, the album was very well received, both by critics and the public. Its folk tone and the traditional way of conceiving it were highly valued. At 42 minutes long, the album included a good handful of melodies supported by a considerable variety of guitars and percussion. The tone of the album bears an enormous resemblance to its predecessor: there are continuous changes of rhythm and with an ending that was a variation of his classic song "On Horseback" in the form of a Celtic rondo.^{[citation required]} Likewise, album sales were positive. Return To Ommadawn peaked at number four in the UK and number three in Germany. In Spain it was number 1 and certified as a gold record.

Discography

Acknowledgments

Grammy Awards

Ivor Novello Awards

NME Awards

The asteroid (5656) Oldfield is named in his honor.