Whilst I was in HMV yesterday, for some reason I noticed the Mike Oldfield section. It’s frightening that Oldfield is still pumping out the same music that he’s been producing for thirty-odd years but that doesn’t detract anything from the genius of Tubular Bells.
This reminded me that it had been far too long since I’d listened to Tubular Bells so I put it on when I got home. It still sounds as great as it ever did. I had one slight problem with it tho’. I was playing a CD that I bought several years ago, but obviously for most of the time that I’ve been listening to it, it’s been on vinyl. This means that there’s a natural pause at the end of side one when you go and turn the record over (hey kids, gather round and listen to Uncle Dave tell you about the good old days). The end of side one is very intense with the Master of Ceremonies introducing all the instruments (“two slightly distorted guitars”) and it’s nice to have that break before launching into side two. One the CD it doesn’t work like that as “track one” leads straight into “track two” with no pause. Because I’m so used to the vinyl version that sounded very strange to me.
Also, has anyone noticed that the shouting in the middle of the second side sounds a lot like Klingon? I reckon that’s where Paramount stole the idea from. Don’t forget that Tubular Bells predates the first Star Trek film by several years.
Afterwards, I also listened to Tubular Bells II. I still can’t work out what the point of that was.