Platinumpty
Group: Members
Posts: 180
Joined: May 2011 |
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Posted: May 26 2011, 12:01 |
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Hello Tubularians!
I've been browsing these forums for some weeks now, hesitant to dip my toe in the water of what seems like an endless lake of Oldfield expertise. I'll just say hello and give you a glimpse into my personal Oldfield experiences.
I'm 40 years old, a writer (screenplays mostly) and film director, born in Edinburgh and now living in London.
1975 - the first piece of music I can distinctly remember - a strangely catchy folky Christmas piece, enlivened by oddly modern electric guitar, playing on my schoolfriend's dad's stereo. It is of course In Dulci Jubilo and I never forget it, to the extent of still having a clear mental picture of what the stereo looked like (flat, brown, tobacco-tinted lid, hidden in a recess under stippled wallpaper).
1984 - A nicely designed album catches my eye in the Fountainbridge record library whilst browsing with my dad. It feature a pensive man, a tower, and a moon in a green sky over rippling water. I borrow it for no reason other than a vague recollection that my dad owns a record by that bloke. Many listens later, it sends me scouring my Dad's record collection for that funny-looking record with a twisted tube of metal on the front.
1986 - walking though the Pentland Hills in Edinburgh listening to Hergest Ridge on my brand new Sony Walkman, which I'd just taped from LP (Ommadawn on the other side of the C90 most likely). The wild weather, unpeopled and beautiful scenery chiming perfectly with those long sustained cornet notes and acoustic guitar strums. Lonely bliss for a lonely teenager. At fear of sounding pretentious, this is the music of my soul.
1990 - utter dismay as the horrors of Music From the Balcony and the fetid song offerings on side 1 of Heaven's Open drive a wedge into my appreciation of Oldfield's canon. This is the sound of a deeply-troubled man struggling with both his muse and his patron (the cloth-eared Nincompoop). Tubular Bells 2 goes some way to repairing the damage but it marks a temporary parting of the ways...
1994 - I'm working in a cinema whilst studying. As I wait for patrons to turn up for the evening screening of the latest arthouse flick, something lightly rhythmic, otherwordly and ambient with an oddly familiar guitar sound oddles over the sound system. At first it feels bland, after many other screenings it reveals its subtleties. "Sounds like Mike Oldfield", I think. Some time later I realise it's Songs of Distant Earth. I return to the albums...
2011 - a further 21 years of playing scratchy vinyl copies of Oldfield's first 15 albums (except Earth Moving and Heaven's Open which I probably flogged) and dipping into the rest on Spotify, I realise I'm a committed Tubarian and join this forum.
My deeply personal and subjective Top Ten Oldfield Albums (I'm not massively familiar with anything after Tubular Bells 2, although I have heard them all at least once, but am attempting to fill the gaps and have just ordered my first 3 post-92 CDs from Amazon):
1. Hergest Ridge
2. Incantations
3. Tubular Bells
4. Ommadawn
5. Amarok
6. QE2
7. Crises
8. Platinum
9. Islands
10. SODE
Please be patient with me while I explore the later works... its hard when you're in love with music by a man who has commited both extraordinary genius and aural atrocity to tape (and digital media).
Anyhow, those are my musings on some of my Oldfield memories. He's given me so much I thought it only fair to share them with those who admire him most.
Do you know, I really think I could dance?
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