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Topic: Albums/DVDs, Opinions

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Punkadiddle Offline

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Posts: 19
Joined: Sep. 2003

Posted: Sep. 12 2003, 10:06

I need everyone's opinion on these albums and whether or not I should buy them:

1) Amarok
2) Tubular Bells 3
3) Guitars
4) Tr3s Lunas
5) Voyager
6) Songs Of Distant Earth
7) Discovery
8) Heaven's Open
9) Islands
10) Crises
11) Boxed
12) The Millenium Bell (DVD)
13) Tubular Bells 2/3 (DVD)

theweightless Offline

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Posted: Sep. 12 2003, 10:15

if you got the money, why not :cool:

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ASMK

Gilliana

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Posted: Sep. 12 2003, 10:45

1) Amarok - 'MUST HAVE' cathegory

2) Tubular Bells 3 - It's from Mike's new style... a bit ibizan feeling... mostly... Man In the Rain, a bit like Moonlight Shadow... Far above the clouds and Secrets...if you like dance music you'll love it...Outcast.. a great moving guitar number....Serpent dream... a bit like spanish music... and The Top Of The Morning is also in the album, which is BEAUTIFUL
3) Guitars - he plays only /surprisingly/ with Guitars.. it is a quite relaxing album /ok, except for one track/... with really nice tracks...
4) Tr3s Lunas - the newest album... really relaxing... I don't know... when I heared it for the first time, I thought it needs sg...since then I changed my mind. It is a kinda album U have to listen twice or three times or more to discover how great.
5) Voyager - If you like Irish music this is an album for you!Great!
6) Songs Of Distant Earth - 'MUST HAVE' cathegory, in my opinion... as perfect as the book... cannot be cathegorised...
7) Discovery - It's like Earth Moving, except for the last track, an instrumental one, The Lake. The rest is the music of the 80's. there are some nice solos in it but mostly it is 'popular' music.
8) Heaven's Open - I don't have this one.
9) Islands - the same
10) Crises - 'MUST HAVE' in my opinion... it is a 25-30 minute long track, great!
11) Boxed - don't have
12) The Millenium Bell (DVD) - MUST HAVE.great one! In every track, he plays different solos from the original! It consists of some older tracks, and tracks of TMB.. wonderful. especially the bonus Art In Heaven track... the solo is terrific, wonderful, amazing, and the light show drops U to another dimension! Really spectacular in every way.
13) Tubular Bells 2/3 (DVD) - these are also great! Especially TB II it is a MUST HAVE! U did not mention TB II cd, so I guess U know it.
TB III is also great, but there some tracks wich are from playback

Ok, it is only my opinion! Sorry if I'm wrong with sg
You can find out further infos about the albums in this site!
And yes, theweightless is right! Lucky guy! U must have a good job!

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'Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around'

'Send me your dream, one more to believe in
Send me a dream, realities lost and unseeen.....'

Ugo

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Posts: 5495
Joined: April 2000

Posted: Sep. 12 2003, 11:05

If you are a true Mike fan [click here to read my topic 'I'm gonna find out where you fans really stand', about my very ironic definition of what a true Mike fan is...

], and, as TheWeightless says, you are lucky enough to have the money to get 'em all... well, get 'em all.

The only advice I can give you is what follows.

1) If you don't like 80s pop songs, don't get Islands and Discovery.
2) If you like Mike making powerful music, don't get Tres Lunas.

3) If you don't like Irish music, don't get Voyager (of course...).
4) If you already have TB, HR and Ommadawn, don't get Boxed.

All the others IMHO definitely belong to what Gilliana calls the 'must have' category.

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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian

Fingers

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Posted: Sep. 12 2003, 12:08

1) Amarok - if you own a CD player - you should own this album, oldfield fan or not.

2) Tubular Bells 3 - Tubular Bells does dance - badly. Nice spanish sounding guitar on one track, pretty disjointed and musically unchallenging and uninspiring. The "big finale" possibly the most over rated thing he's ever done.

3) Guitars - clever concept and a few good tunes on it. Summit Day is a great listen.

4) Tr3s Lunas - if your PC will play MusicVR it's worth it for the novelty value. Musically very poor indeed.

5) Voyager - a "nice" album. Some great tracks.

6) Songs Of Distant Earth - great music linked with great book. Has the kind of "through theme" that TB3 was lacking. A definite purchase.

7) Discovery - NO!

8) Heaven's Open - NO!

9) Islands - NO!

10) Crises - maybe

11) Boxed - if you like.

12) The Millenium Bell (DVD) - just sold my copy of it. Very dull unless you were there and have the memories to trigger.

13) Tubular Bells 2/3 (DVD) - definitely... wish they had one of Live TB1.

TOBY

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Posted: Sep. 12 2003, 12:18

If you think you like Mike Oldfield you MUST own a copy of Amarok, Its mandatory. Out of the others I would certainly start with Crises and The Songs of Distant Earth, both these albums are the best examples of Mike's foray's into the genre's they represeant. A more commercial rock instrumental sound together with some nice songs in the case of Crises and a very contemporary synth based ambient sound in the case of TSODE. So I would go for those 3 and slowly work your way through the others. Its alway's exciting for newer fans to get some visual footage of Mike in their collection and you're getting a lot of footage for your money with the TB2/3 DVD set.

Gilliana

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Joined: Aug. 2003

Posted: Sep. 17 2003, 02:57

Ugo: I read the full topic, and had laughed a lot

It was great, thanxxx
And: 'I Am a MO fan!!!'

slan

--------------
'Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around'

'Send me your dream, one more to believe in
Send me a dream, realities lost and unseeen.....'

Satyagraha Offline

Group: Musicians
Posts: 103
Joined: June 2003

Posted: Sep. 17 2003, 04:49

Get Discovery. Please don't mind the bad things people have said about it. It' an absolutely lovely album, in my opinion his only 100 per cent successful pop album. Not like Earth Moving at all, except for the format. Not a weak song (er, Talk About Your Life possibly isn't that great), and you just have to love The Lake. One of his best 12 minute instrumentals, up there with Orabidoo.
Get it. I promise you won't be disappointed.

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Byrði betri berrat maðr brautu at en sé mannvit mikit

Holger

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Posted: Sep. 17 2003, 06:16

I'd second that. It's a 'real Mike' album, as opposed to Earth Moving or Islands; only that he chose the format of pop (or rock - it's not all pop!) songs to work with that time around. But stylistically it's not that far away from his 80s instrumental work really. Which is why The Lake fits wonderfully on that album.

TOBY

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Joined: May 2002

Posted: Sep. 17 2003, 17:29

I would certainly agree that The Lake is a wonderfull track. I wouldn't describe the rest of Discovery as any more or less of a MO album than Islands or Earth Moving simply because you like music more. Reading between the lines in various interviews with Mike it seems he was under a lot of commercial pressure from Virgin to follow up the success of Crises and in particular Moonlight Shadow and so opted for a very song based album. From my own point of view I think only The Lake and To France save this album for me these days, the rest hasn't aged well at all, although back in the late 80's I used to rather like it.

I would certainly recommend Islands to any newer fans. The Wind Chimes isn't a track I particularly gell with these days but agian I used to like it a fair bit, its worth keeping in mind that a lot of fans really rate The Wind Chimes highly so its worth keeping that in mind when recommending it to others.

The songs on Islands, like those on Earth Moving, are very of their time and if you can apreciate them for that then you can probably get something out of them. Earth Moving certainly wasn't Mike's most artisticaly honest hour to put it mildly, but there's still some nice guitar pieces if nothing else.

qjamesfloyd Offline

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Joined: April 2001

Posted: Sep. 18 2003, 11:46

For me,Mike is one of those artists where you can't just onw 1 or 2 albums,you have to own the lot,to uderstand the true scope of genius the man has,not every album is great,no artist has all great albums,everyone has a weak album or 2,but i just have to own all Mike has done!!!

10 replies since Sep. 12 2003, 10:06

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Mike Oldfield Forums » Tubular Talk » General discussion » Albums/DVDs