Mike+oldfield

Six years after the classical Music of the Spheres, Mike Oldfield returns to his version of rock. Man on the Rocks is a slick production that recalls the AOR sounds of the late '70s and early '80s. He plays many instruments here but concentrates mainly on guitar…

Mike Oldfield is a bit of an enigma. On the one hand is the artist who almost single-handedly ushered in the genre of new age music with his epic masterpiece Tubular Bells, and then followed that with several albums, Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, and even Tubular Bells II and III, all with tracks that invariable meandered for half an hour or more through various musical ideas and soundscapes – and no doubt would have gone on a lot longer had it not been for the constraints of vinyl and the restrictions on the length of musical compositions that would physically fit on two sides of a piece of plastic with micro grooves…

Elements represents the many sides of Mike Oldfield, and is a short but interesting journey through some of this multi-instrumentalist's best efforts. Sixteen of his albums are spoken for, with the same number of tracks making up this assortment…

Mike Oldfield's 1973 classic Tubular Bells set a new precedent for soundtrack music, and walked so many different stylistic lines that it appealed to an enormous cross section of the record-buying public. If the original album flirted with prog rock, new age, neo-classical, and what would become ambient music, it only makes sense that 40 years later Tubular Bells and other early Oldfield material (including "Ommadawn") could be re-imagined as beat-driven electronica with Tubular Beats…

The Essential Mike Oldfield is a good overview of highlights from Mike Oldfield's Virgin and Warner recordings. Some of the tracks are included in their original form, while others – including, inexplicably, "Tubular Bells III" – are present in edited or remixed versions…

Elements represents the many sides of Mike Oldfield, and is a short but interesting journey through some of this multi-instrumentalist's best efforts…

This album is simply exceptional. You get a hearty dose of a musical genius's compositional skills and vocabulary, but you don't come away feeling as though you were "taken to school"; the music is very accessible…

It was late one evening in 1973, when, with the professional musicians resident at Richard Branson's country estate The Manor finished up for the day, the unknown Mike Oldfield settled in for one night of frantic production on his debut record…

Oldfield’s ninth studio album Discovery has been newly remastered and will be reissued as an expanded 2CD+DVD deluxe set. The first disc will add five bonus tracks including an extended version of To France, along with B-sides and extra tracks from a 12-inch single…

With this Deluxe Edition, Oldfield includes versions of Ommadawn previously lost, carefully selected bonus tracks, and DVD material to accompany specific tracks. Sharing the format of its two predecessors - Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge, Oldfield stays loyal to his conceptual roots in Ommadawn, but incorporates musical styles from a far greater range of influences including folk, Celtic, and middle eastern sounds. As a result, Oldfield channels greater scope for musical development, defining Ommadawn as a creative peak in Oldfield's wide-ranging career…