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ian Group: Members Posts: 473 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 16 2003, 13:43 I have posted a message about Tubular Bells 2003 on the Sound on sound forum (music making mag) and the general reaction is not good.Click on Forum and then on the music recording technology link,then the title "a classic album re-recorded" http://www.sospubs.co.uk/index.htm Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: May 16 2003, 14:07 Unfortunately but also understandably this is going to be the attitude of most people I think. It has to be said however that a 'certain percentage' let us say of the total 'gearheads' and 'techheads' who contribute to forums like that possibly don't have a creative bone in their body and so have bugger all understanding of anything even remotely artistic done by Mike or anybody else for that matter. A lot of them are only interested in how many knobs and flashing lights their keyboards have rather than what they're keyboards are actualy producing. I know I'm generalising but anyway rant over. Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: May 16 2003, 14:38 I think some comments are, as you say, rather adolescent, while some are making quite reasonable criticism. I certainly know the kind of tech-heads Toby is talking about, and I have very little time for them. What's good isn't what's fashionable, but what works for you (this of course applies to all sorts of things, musical taste included!). I think it's actually very difficult to be really creative when you're buying a new piece of equipment every month, as it usually takes a while to really get under the surface of something (that even applies to really simple things like guitars - I feel it takes a while of getting to know an instrument before truly discovering its 'personality', and without knowing that, it's not possible to get the best out of it). Of course, things like synths all come with presets, which of course yield instant results...instant results which sound like what everyone else is doing...if someone isn't taking the time to explore, those presets are going to be all that's ever used. If everyone, including Mike, gets delving, new directions will soon appear... Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 16 2003, 21:36 Mike is right.... people are getting aggressive when you do something out of the ordinary nowadays... Covering music is no problem (look at all those "stars" at this moment)... but if you re-record your album, you have to watch yourself... I don't get these kind of people -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: May 17 2003, 10:53 But I don't think he is right though. What does he mean by doing things out of the ordinary? And who's getting agressive and for what reason? If he thinks thats the reason people are criticising him for rerecording TB (that its out of the ordinary) he's even more out of touch than I thought. Look how out of the ordinary TB was in 1973 and look at all the critical praise it got, he's somewhat contradicting the hard evidence at the base of his career I would say. There are plenty of musicians/bands out there getting an enormous amount of praise and a fair degree of commercial success doing music way, way more experimental and diverse than anything in Mike's recent releases. The critics don't just savage Mike for nothing, contrary to what he and some fans think. If he released an outstanding album tomorrow I'm sure he would get his fair share of critical apraisal. Of course he's sort of right in his view that there are people out there in the music industry who will draw knives against him without even hearing the album or any album by him but he and fans have to be realistic enough to look at the reasons why this is. Very little of Mike's recent output has been particularly out of the ordinary and very little of it or even none of it has exactly broken down musical barriers with its originality, if it had it would get critical attention and would reap commercial reward. Now I'm not in anyway saying or suggesting that Mike should simply stop making music and say 'thats it career over' but I would rather he stopped making music untill he finds new inspiration and new material to interest him.Personaly I would rather wait a few years and get a really good album full of new and fresh ideas rather than see yet another mediocre churned out album in a shorter period of time. He does seem to come across, certainly in recent interviews, with a rather indifferent bored and fed up attitude with regarding music and this for me has definately filtered through to his own albums, all the skill, care and attention to detail you associate with Mike has been massively lacking in the last little while, he can still produce some beautifull melodies but they're rarely anything more than half realised, this was certainly the case with Tres Lunas. Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 17 2003, 11:31 Mmmm, I remember some of us talked about this before... in the very early days of this forum. Just after the release of TMB, saying Mike should wait a few years and come with a great album. Well, he did (TL) although some of us think it isn't a good album, I personally think it is a good one. -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: May 17 2003, 12:28 Well the MVR project as a whole was certainly worth spending two years doing, if Mike said tomorrow that producing more MVR's was going to be the shape of the next part of his career I would say fair enough, if thats what it takes for him to feel inspired enough to write good music then go for it. There was some lovely music written for MVR/Treslunas, some of the melodies easily match anything on its close reletive TSODE but where it becomes a lesser album to that one is in how those tunes were finaly rendered. At the end of the day it's all about making the right desicions and Mike these day's is sadly it would seem not as good as he used to be in this area, either that or he's being very easily swayed by someone else who's bad at making them, record company/management who knows? Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 17 2003, 18:07 Yeah, I wonder how much time he's going to spend for his next album? And what about those tours? -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

Man In The Rain Group: Members Posts: 405 Joined: April 2002 Posted: May 19 2003, 00:25 Quote (TOBY @ May 17 2003, 15:53) The critics don't just savage Mike for nothing, contrary to what he and some fans think. If he released an outstanding album tomorrow I'm sure he would get his fair share of critical apraisal. Yeah because the critics were *really* falling over themselves to praise Amarok. Not. Come on, we all know how prejudiced the industry is to many talented artists, particularly those who have been around as long as Mike and also are as independent from everyone else as Mike is. It's all relative. One of the most hyped albums of recent times was The Vines' Highly Evolved, a catchy but ultimately passion-less, predictable album with absolutely no depth or genuine rock and roll anarchy within a million miles of it. I'm maybe not making the point as well as I could do because I have been up working and am immensely tired, but I know that mainstream music critics on the whole are NOT interested in connecting open-minded listeners with the genuine best music out there. Anyway I am probably going off-topic so I will now shut up!!! -------------- Hergest Ridge 165 - Ommadawn 038 - Incantations 243 Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: May 19 2003, 07:29 I think it's a bit of both sides really. No matter what Mike does, there are always going to be people who come out and accuse it of being pompous, pretentious and self indulgent - they've been saying that ever since Hergest Ridge came out and probably aren't ever going to stop. On the other side, his releasing of countless Tubular Bells albums in recent years really hasn't helped things along. I think there are grains of truth in what Mike says, that some people just don't understand his work (when it's good...) because he's not a band and isn't doing the conventional thing. In fact, it's probably fair to say that with all of his recent work, the listeners haven't been hearing something in there which Mike does hear, but that isn't always because it's too clever, as we all know after listening to <insert least highly regarded 90s/00s album here>. Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: May 19 2003, 08:31 Man in the Rain. Don't shut up you have a fair point, just look at Oasis, the only people in the world who still like them are music critics who seem to have a bizarre infatuation with them somewhat regardless of the fact they have been producing utterly forgettable music since their second album. I suppose the point I was trying to make was that I do think there are still some music critics, certainly in the more open minded magazines, Mojo, Record Collector etc who would give Mike the attention he deserves if and when he deserved it. And quite simply their not going to if he's going to stay in the relms of mediocrity, and neither are the record buying public. One last point regarding Amarok. It did actualy get SOME quite good reviews by those few critics who were bothered enough to review it, granted some twat at Q magazine gave it 2 stars out of 5 but if I remember rightly the NME, who let us not forget don't need any excuse to hate Mike, thought it was brilliant and said it was a real return to form as did a few other mags I read at the time. Back to top

Fingers Group: Members Posts: 43 Joined: April 2003 Posted: May 19 2003, 10:07 I've been a lifelong fan of MO's work - and I don't see a problem with reworking his earlier material if that's what he wants to do. I think the bigger issue here is that for a large part of his career Mike has turned out decided average music interspersed with moments of sheer genius. Sadly, people expect to either love or hate an artists work. Imagine if clever instrumentals were your thing, but you wrote off Mike Oldfield as a writer of poor guitar pop tunes after hearing some of his 80's offerings... MO's last few albums have been weak. Lets face it-  Tres Lunas is poor. Pretty little synth tunes and repetitive chord progressions. Written as a computer game sound track - IMO that's exactly how much musical respect it deserves.. So despite being a fan, considering Amarok a masterpiece, considering TSODE one of the most listenable albums ever, you've got to agree with the critics at the moment. Mikes last few offerings have been lame. As for him saying that he doesn't listen to much - he needs to! Gaining inspiration from your peers is what it's about. Every note sequence may have been played.. but others out there are still managing to get emotion into their music. Tres Lunas was sterile and devoid of life. I'll bash the MO critics when I think they're being out of order.. but it's tough to do when I can see their point only too well! Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: May 19 2003, 16:05 I wonder if the fact that John Cleese is in TB2003 will help promote the album? -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

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