Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (1973)

"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile) 05/15/2018 at 15:25 • Filed to: musiclopnik

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ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 15:40

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Listening now, as I make a ham casserole. So far, rather minimalistic. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/15/2018 at 15:49

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He recorded it originally at the age of 19, playing over 20 instruments himself.

user314 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 15:59

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OPPOsaurus WRX > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 16:06

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I listen to this all the time. Its great stuff to listen to at work

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 16:11

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Well, that explains a lot. I do have an opinion about it, though I may come off as a snooty classical musician (I’m half of that, you can decide which half). Would you like to hear it?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/15/2018 at 16:12

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Sure. This is the kind of piece that inspires snoot. I’m not one of the people who holds it up as a masterwork, as such, more just something interesting.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 16:28

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Okay then.

Knowing that Oldfield originally recorded the concept playing all the instruments himself explains why it sound a lot like 25 minutes of marginally connected riffs layered on top of each other (I didn’t know he had done that before I listened). The piece also rarely, if ever, changes key. It just kind of sits there and bubbles along. As such, the only real development you get is by the changing of the instrumentation, sort of a psychedelic klangenfarbenmelodie (that’s my big musicological Word of the Day). What that big German word means is that the change of instrumental timbre itself is what gives the melody shape and structure ( klang = sound, farben = color). But, since it’s a series of independent riffs, it never really has a change to develop melodically or grow. It’s one idea. Then another. Then another. Then another.

Now, all that being said, it was certainly influential, but perhaps in an unintended way. The first riff was used for the opening credits of The Exorcist , which, clearly, was an extremely important movie for the horror genre. In fact, that’s how American audiences first heard Tubular Bells , and what gave Oldfield a toehold on this side of the Atlantic. But ask yourself, where else have you heard this music? Or music just like it? Here, maybe, in another extremely influential horror film?

So, while I feel this music is, in the words of one of my former instructors, “A mile wide and an inch deep,” it is still influential in the larger rock/prog rock genre, the orchestral rock genre, and certainly in the film world. However, I fear that it’s also somewhat dated, and probably best heard rather than listened to, and with a healthy buzz.

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 16:32

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Fun Fact: A part of Tubular bells was used in a Dutch childrens TV series (Bassie & Adriaan) to build tension when something was about to happen.

Other things for which Bassie & Adriaan needs to be known:

A car chase, in a kids show, using a 260Z and a Rancho!

ttyymmnn > user314 05/15/2018 at 16:41

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I first heard that back in the late 70s (or maybe early 80s). Our local news (WAVY in VA) used the section with the brass for the opening of the news program. My parents had it on vinyl, and I listened to it often.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/15/2018 at 16:48

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probably best heard rather than listened to

Sometimes a failing of, say, Hawkwind as well. I don’t think I was too far off in describing it as a chamber music suite, but it does suffer I would say from lack of collaboration. Lack of exterior input, refinement. It’s hard to be a somnolent or pensive piece (unlike Carpenter’s Halloween score, trying deliberately to be ominous and jarring), and still power through on sheer ego. It’s just Mike Oldfield playing Mike Oldfield.

Funny enough, I can think of several other teen ego magnum opus works that are similar. For literature, you have (successfully) Christopher Paolini, and unsuccessfully Jim Theis . For film, lots of little examples like The Final Sacrifice . It’s nearly always interesting to see one, because the creator is not only getting things horribly wrong, but also doing things interestingly right by sheer intuition or accident. The brakes are off. A lot of that kind of work ends up one-off, because the creator’s oversized ego made it happen in the first place, and the growing good sense of years reined them in too far.

Pink Floyd were usually better, but not always more interesting.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 16:57

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Pink Floyd were usually better, but not always more interesting.

I think Pink Floyd tended to suffer from their own opinion of their music. Then again, I’ve played music by many composers who fit that description.

There were many things I listened to in my youth where I said, “Wow, man, this is deep .” Then I got older and more sophisticated, and learned that no, it really isn’t. That doesn’t make it bad , it just means that you’ve outgrown it. I would be interested to hear Oldfield’s opinion of that work now.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/15/2018 at 17:14

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I’ve been told that Floyd themselves hate Atom Heart Mother these days. It *is* overblown and pretentious, almost hilariously so, but what it isn’t is stale. As much as it may be an old shame to them, it can be fun to listen to, partly because it hasn’t been ironed flat.

Perhaps tellingly, the story also goes that Kubrick wanted to use the first part of the suite over the intro to A Clockwork Orange, so there’s that prog chamber music/film connection cropping up again.

For the flip side of all that, Hank Marvin of the Shadows liked Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygene enough to play a somewhat prog rock, emphasis on rock, version.

Mr. Marvin is a technician , but I don’t think he has a pretentious bone in his body.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 17:17

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Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygene

Wow, I had forgotten about this. I had it on cassette back in the day.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/15/2018 at 17:21

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I’m sure you’re starting to get a sense of why my music tastes often provoke open stares from my peers.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/15/2018 at 17:53

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I am a classically trained professional classical musician. Yet I never listen to classical music. It bores me. I like to listen to as much different things as possible.

pip bip - choose Corrour > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/16/2018 at 06:39

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awesome!

love TB2 & TB3!

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/16/2018 at 07:32

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I watched a couple of Aussie nutters reproduce the entire thing live, in real time and with real instruments, a couple of years ago. Remarkably hectic and stressful to listen to for such a simplistic piece of music.