Sentinel_NZ
Group: Members
Posts: 219
Joined: June 2021 |
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Posted: Sep. 02 2024, 17:01 |
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| Quote (Platinumpty @ Aug. 30 2024, 06:39) | | A brave post - but why nothing from Man on the Rocks?! Or Earth Moving? |
Why nothing from Man on the Rocks? Because there isn't a single good song, or even lyric, on the album. As for Earth Moving, Innocent - a brilliant 80s-style pop/rock classic, which deserved to be a massive global chart hit - is included there and could even be much higher up the list. But apart from that, both records are (in my opinion, obviously...) not just poor Mike Oldfield albums, but objectively poor rock albums by any measure at all. The music videos for Man on the Rocks only weaken the overall impression; Luke Spiller may be a good singer, but his T-Rex/Freddy Mercury/Alice Cooper/Marc Bolan/Rod Stewart* 70s glam retro throwback style is totally at odds with everything & anything Oldfield has ever done and doesn't jive at all even with the music. All very unfortunate.. (in my opinion, of course....)
Like it says in the description, "only included are songs I consider worthy of ranking". Hence only one song from Heaven's Open; hence no "Mistake" (a dreadful tune), "Holy", "Sailing", "Nuclear", "Moonshine", "Man on the Rocks", "Pictures in the Dark" and so forth...several such songs which other fans may conceivably consider personal favourites.
I can't help suspecting that Mike intentionally & knowingly released such inferior albums either side of such brilliant masterpieces (Islands and Amarok in the case of Earth Moving; Music of the Spheres and Return to Ommadawn in the case of Man on the Rocks); the exact reason for doing so I'm not so clear on. Earth Moving can easily be seen, I suppose, as an example of what Monty Python would call a "Contractual Obligation Album"; Man on the Rocks - which, as I mention, to me is a truly awful record by all measures - is less easy to explain. The best idea I can come up with is since it was such a long time between Music of the Spheres and Return to Ommadawn, he felt the need to remain in the public consciousness and the idea of releasing a more commercial-sounding, blandly generic set of songs, in collaboration with a much younger, currently popular artist was to grab as much attention as possible (which worked to some extent). And if it meant more people bought or listened to Return to Ommadawn, for instance, then that strategy must be considered a successe even though the music itself is completely worthless (in my view).
* Who are/were all excellent artists and singers, it's not that I don't like them...just not the right look for a Mike Oldfield collaboration in my opinion.
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