Mike Oldfield Tubular.net
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The whistling wind, the swirling pan pipes, the wobbly electric guitar...
200 million TV viewers are expected to watch this piece of music being performed in Berlin's Siegessaule Square before a crowd of 500,000 as the century turns, and why not? There's a briskness about The Millennium Bell that suggests Mike Oldfield didn't give himself too much time to worry over its construction - listeners certainly needn't trouble themselves too much with the search for meaning - and the result is his most memorable music in years: snatches of solo choral, a bit of Enya, some Heinz soup advert, and three or four of those instantly memorable riffs which tunnel their way into whatever part of the brain is most vulnerable to such things.
*** (Good. Not for everyone, but fine within its field)