
Michael Gordon Oldfield (born May 15, 1953 in Reading, Berkshire, England) is a multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends rock or progressive rock, ethnic or world music, and classical music. ==History== Oldfield's parents were Maureen and Raymond Oldfield. His sister Sally Oldfield and brother Terry Oldfield are successful musicians in their own right and have appeared on several of his albums. ===(1973-1991) Virgin years=== Oldfield's most famous work is ''Tubular Bells'', an instrumental composition recorded in 1972 and launched on May 25, 1973 as the inaugural album of Richard Branson's Virgin Records label. The album was groundbreaking, as Oldfield played more than twenty different instruments in the multi-layered recording, and its style progressed continuously, covering many diverse musical genres. The album quickly reached the top 10 in UK album sales and stayed on the chart for 247 weeks. In the US, it got attention chiefly by appearing on the soundtrack to ''The Exorcist''. In autumn 1974, the follow-up LP, ''Hergest Ridge (album)'', was No 1 in the UK for three weeks and was then dethroned by ''Tubular Bells''. Like ''Tubular Bells'', ''Hergest Ridge (album)'' took the form of a two-movement instrumental piece, this time evoking scenes from Oldfield's Herefordshire country retreat. This was followed in 1975 with the pioneering world music piece ''Ommadawn'', and 1978's ''Incantations (album)'' which introduced more diverse choral performances from Sally Oldfield, Maddy Prior and the Queen's College, London Girls Choir. Around the time of ''Incantations (album)'', Oldfield underwent a controversial self-assertiveness therapy course known as Exegesis; no doubt as a result of this, the formerly reclusive musician staged a major European tour to promote the album, chronicled in his live album ''Exposed (Mike Oldfield album)'', much of which was recorded at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham, the first ever concert at that venue. The early 1980s saw Oldfield make a transition to "mainstream" popular music, beginning with the inclusion of shorter instrumental tracks and contemporary cover versions on ''Platinum (Mike Oldfield album)'' and ''QE2 (album)'' (the latter named after the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2). Soon afterwards he turned his attention to songwriting, with a string of collaborations featuring various lead vocalists alongside Oldfield's trademark searing guitar solos. The best known of these is "Moonlight Shadow", his 1983 hit with Maggie Reilly which took John Lennon's death as one of its themes. This hit has been covered by various other artists, including Aselin Debison (Canada Folk music singer) and DJ Mystic (electronic music/techno music). In 2002 it was a huge hit in central Europe for the German dance act Groove Coverage. Oldfield later turned to film and video, writing the score for Roland Joffé's acclaimed film ''The Killing Fields (movie)'' and producing substantial video footage for his album ''Islands (Mike Oldfield album)''. This was however a time of much friction with his record label, Virgin Records reportedly insisting that any future instrumental album should be billed as ''Tubular Bells 2''. Oldfield's rebellious response was ''Amarok (album)'', an hour-long work featuring rapidly changing themes (supposedly devised to make cutting a single from the album impossible), unpredictable bursts of noise, and a very cleverly-hidden Morse code insult directed at Richard Branson. Although regarded by many fans as his greatest work, it was not a commercial success. His parting shot from the Virgin label was ''Heaven's Open'', which continued the veiled attacks on Branson but was notable for being the first time Oldfield had contributed all the lead vocals himself. Some say this was due to his anxiety to quit Virgin as soon as possible (he had previously stated that his voice did not belong on his recordings). His relationship with Richard Branson was never good, even in the beginning. ===(1992-2003) Warner years=== On the Warner Brothers Records label Oldfield continued to embrace new musical styles, with ''Tubular Bells II'' (a re-interpretation of ''Tubular Bells'', the album that originally shot him to fame), which was premiered at a live concert at Edinburgh Castle, ''The Songs of Distant Earth (album)'' (the latter based on Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth) exhibiting a softer "New Age" sound, and ''Tubular Bells III'' (also premiered at a concert, this time in Horse Guards Parade, London), drawing from the dance music scene at his new home on the island of Ibiza. During 1999 Oldfield released two albums, the first being ''Guitars (Mike Oldfield album)'' which used guitars as the source for all the sounds on the album, including percussion. The second, ''The Millennium Bell'', consisted of pastiches of a number of styles of music that represented various stages in history over the past millennium, and the work was performed live in Berlin for the city's millennium celebrations in 1999-2000. Most recently he has added to his repertoire the ''Music VR'' project, combining his music with a virtual reality-based computer game. His first work on this project is ''Tres Lunas'' launched in 2002, a virtual game where the player can interact with a whole world full of new music specially composed for this occasion. This project appeared as a double CD, one with some part of the music, and the other with the game. In 2003 he released ''Tubular Bells 2003'', a re-recording of the original ''Tubular Bells'', on CD and DVD-Audio. This was done to fix many imperfections in the original that existed due to limitations of the recording technologies of the time and limitations in time that he could spend in the recording studio. This celebrated the 30th anniversary of ''Tubular Bells'', and the fact that Oldfield had recently celebrated his 50th birthday. The DVD-Audio version has not only the same content as the CD version in surround, but it also has some demos of the original ''Tubular Bells''. ===(2004- . . . .) Recent years=== On 12 April, 2004 Oldfield launched his next virtual reality project called ''Maestro'' which contains music from the ''Tubular Bells 2003'' album and also some new chillout melodies. The demo versions of the games can be found on the official Mike Oldfield homepage. Early 2005, Oldfield officially announced having signed a three-album deal with Universal Music on the Mercury Records label, and "putting the final touches" to his next work, a double-album possibly titled ''Quicksilver'', and tentatively scheduled around September 2005. ==Discography== ===Studio albums=== * (1973) ''Tubular Bells'' * (1974) ''Hergest Ridge (album)'' * (1975) ''Ommadawn'' * (1978) ''Incantations (album)'' * (1979) ''Platinum (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1980) ''Platinum (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1980) ''QE2 (album)'' * (1982) ''Five Miles Out'' * (1983) ''Crises'' * (1984) ''Discovery (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1987) ''Islands (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1989) ''Earth Moving'' * (1990) ''Amarok (album)'' * (1991) ''Heaven's Open'' * (1992) ''Tubular Bells II'' * (1994) ''The Songs of Distant Earth (album)'' * (1996) ''Voyager (album)'' * (1998) ''Tubular Bells III'' * (1999) ''Guitars (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1999) ''The Millennium Bell'' * (2003) ''Tubular Bells 2003'' ===Soundtracks=== * (1973's ''Tubular Bells'' isn't a soundtrack album, though used in The Exorcist) * (1984) ''The Killing Fields (album)'' - soundtrack for the ''The Killing Fields (movie)'' * (2002) ''Tres Lunas'' aka ''Tres Lunas'' - computer game soundtrack ===Live albums=== * (1979) ''Exposed (Mike Oldfield album)'' ===Compilations, remixes, etc.=== * (1975) ''The Orchestral Tubular Bells'' * (1976) ''Boxed'' * (1979) ''Impressions'' * (1980) ''Music Wonderland'' * (1981) ''Episodes'' * (1985) ''The Complete Mike Oldfield'' * (1987) ''A Virgin Compilation'' * (1990) ''Collector's Edition Box I'' & ''II'' * (1993) ''Elements 1CD (Mike Oldfield album)'' (1CD) * (1993) ''Elements 1973-1991'' (4CD) * (1997) ''XXV: The Essential'' * (2001) ''The Best of Tubular Bells'' * (2002) ''Collection'' ==See also== List of songs over fifteen minutes in length ==External links== * [http://www.mikeoldfield.com mikeoldfield.com] - The official Mike Oldfield website (requires Macromedia Flash plugin) * [http://www.mikeoldfield.org mikeoldfield.org] - The official Mike Oldfield information service * [http://www.tubular.net tubular.net] - Tubular Web, the largest and most well-established Mike Oldfield website. * [http://oldfield.info oldfield.info] - a community website; home to the #mike_oldfield IRC channel. * [http://www.musicvr.com musicvr.com] - Official MusicVR support website (purchase and subscription required). British guitarists British musicians New Age music 1953 births
According to Oldfield in an interview, Moonlight Shadow was not about Lennon's assassination. However, he admitted that it was possible he may have made the connection subconciously as the time at which he was writing it, he arrived in New York the night the assassination happened. Does this warrant a rephrasing of the statement about Moonlight Shadow? ---- Perhaps change to "Moonlight Shadow was influenced by the Death of John Lennon but was not written with the death in mind"? User:GregRobson 20:41, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC) ---- The New Wave music article names Mike Oldfield. What do you think, does this makes sense? In two intervies I got from google (unfortunately, german interviews translated into german) Oldfield expresses his disregard - but I have to admit that his sound around 1983-84 was not far away from famous New Wave Bands. Just listening to "Dancing With Tears in my Eyes" from Ultravox ;) User:Rabauz 13:39, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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Mike Oldfield
Michael Gordon Oldfield (born May 15, 1953 in Reading, Berkshire, England) is a multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends rock or progressive rock, ethnic or world music, and classical music. ==History== Oldfield's parents were Maureen and Raymond Oldfield. His sister Sally Oldfield and brother Terry Oldfield are successful musicians in their own right and have appeared on several of his albums. ===(1973-1991) Virgin years=== Oldfield's most famous work is ''Tubular Bells'', an instrumental composition recorded in 1972 and launched on May 25, 1973 as the inaugural album of Richard Branson's Virgin Records label. The album was groundbreaking, as Oldfield played more than twenty different instruments in the multi-layered recording, and its style progressed continuously, covering many diverse musical genres. The album quickly reached the top 10 in UK album sales and stayed on the chart for 247 weeks. In the US, it got attention chiefly by appearing on the soundtrack to ''The Exorcist''. In autumn 1974, the follow-up LP, ''Hergest Ridge (album)'', was No 1 in the UK for three weeks and was then dethroned by ''Tubular Bells''. Like ''Tubular Bells'', ''Hergest Ridge (album)'' took the form of a two-movement instrumental piece, this time evoking scenes from Oldfield's Herefordshire country retreat. This was followed in 1975 with the pioneering world music piece ''Ommadawn'', and 1978's ''Incantations (album)'' which introduced more diverse choral performances from Sally Oldfield, Maddy Prior and the Queen's College, London Girls Choir. Around the time of ''Incantations (album)'', Oldfield underwent a controversial self-assertiveness therapy course known as Exegesis; no doubt as a result of this, the formerly reclusive musician staged a major European tour to promote the album, chronicled in his live album ''Exposed (Mike Oldfield album)'', much of which was recorded at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham, the first ever concert at that venue. The early 1980s saw Oldfield make a transition to "mainstream" popular music, beginning with the inclusion of shorter instrumental tracks and contemporary cover versions on ''Platinum (Mike Oldfield album)'' and ''QE2 (album)'' (the latter named after the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2). Soon afterwards he turned his attention to songwriting, with a string of collaborations featuring various lead vocalists alongside Oldfield's trademark searing guitar solos. The best known of these is "Moonlight Shadow", his 1983 hit with Maggie Reilly which took John Lennon's death as one of its themes. This hit has been covered by various other artists, including Aselin Debison (Canada Folk music singer) and DJ Mystic (electronic music/techno music). In 2002 it was a huge hit in central Europe for the German dance act Groove Coverage. Oldfield later turned to film and video, writing the score for Roland Joffé's acclaimed film ''The Killing Fields (movie)'' and producing substantial video footage for his album ''Islands (Mike Oldfield album)''. This was however a time of much friction with his record label, Virgin Records reportedly insisting that any future instrumental album should be billed as ''Tubular Bells 2''. Oldfield's rebellious response was ''Amarok (album)'', an hour-long work featuring rapidly changing themes (supposedly devised to make cutting a single from the album impossible), unpredictable bursts of noise, and a very cleverly-hidden Morse code insult directed at Richard Branson. Although regarded by many fans as his greatest work, it was not a commercial success. His parting shot from the Virgin label was ''Heaven's Open'', which continued the veiled attacks on Branson but was notable for being the first time Oldfield had contributed all the lead vocals himself. Some say this was due to his anxiety to quit Virgin as soon as possible (he had previously stated that his voice did not belong on his recordings). His relationship with Richard Branson was never good, even in the beginning. ===(1992-2003) Warner years=== On the Warner Brothers Records label Oldfield continued to embrace new musical styles, with ''Tubular Bells II'' (a re-interpretation of ''Tubular Bells'', the album that originally shot him to fame), which was premiered at a live concert at Edinburgh Castle, ''The Songs of Distant Earth (album)'' (the latter based on Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth) exhibiting a softer "New Age" sound, and ''Tubular Bells III'' (also premiered at a concert, this time in Horse Guards Parade, London), drawing from the dance music scene at his new home on the island of Ibiza. During 1999 Oldfield released two albums, the first being ''Guitars (Mike Oldfield album)'' which used guitars as the source for all the sounds on the album, including percussion. The second, ''The Millennium Bell'', consisted of pastiches of a number of styles of music that represented various stages in history over the past millennium, and the work was performed live in Berlin for the city's millennium celebrations in 1999-2000. Most recently he has added to his repertoire the ''Music VR'' project, combining his music with a virtual reality-based computer game. His first work on this project is ''Tres Lunas'' launched in 2002, a virtual game where the player can interact with a whole world full of new music specially composed for this occasion. This project appeared as a double CD, one with some part of the music, and the other with the game. In 2003 he released ''Tubular Bells 2003'', a re-recording of the original ''Tubular Bells'', on CD and DVD-Audio. This was done to fix many imperfections in the original that existed due to limitations of the recording technologies of the time and limitations in time that he could spend in the recording studio. This celebrated the 30th anniversary of ''Tubular Bells'', and the fact that Oldfield had recently celebrated his 50th birthday. The DVD-Audio version has not only the same content as the CD version in surround, but it also has some demos of the original ''Tubular Bells''. ===(2004- . . . .) Recent years=== On 12 April, 2004 Oldfield launched his next virtual reality project called ''Maestro'' which contains music from the ''Tubular Bells 2003'' album and also some new chillout melodies. The demo versions of the games can be found on the official Mike Oldfield homepage. Early 2005, Oldfield officially announced having signed a three-album deal with Universal Music on the Mercury Records label, and "putting the final touches" to his next work, a double-album possibly titled ''Quicksilver'', and tentatively scheduled around September 2005. ==Discography== ===Studio albums=== * (1973) ''Tubular Bells'' * (1974) ''Hergest Ridge (album)'' * (1975) ''Ommadawn'' * (1978) ''Incantations (album)'' * (1979) ''Platinum (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1980) ''Platinum (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1980) ''QE2 (album)'' * (1982) ''Five Miles Out'' * (1983) ''Crises'' * (1984) ''Discovery (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1987) ''Islands (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1989) ''Earth Moving'' * (1990) ''Amarok (album)'' * (1991) ''Heaven's Open'' * (1992) ''Tubular Bells II'' * (1994) ''The Songs of Distant Earth (album)'' * (1996) ''Voyager (album)'' * (1998) ''Tubular Bells III'' * (1999) ''Guitars (Mike Oldfield album)'' * (1999) ''The Millennium Bell'' * (2003) ''Tubular Bells 2003'' ===Soundtracks=== * (1973's ''Tubular Bells'' isn't a soundtrack album, though used in The Exorcist) * (1984) ''The Killing Fields (album)'' - soundtrack for the ''The Killing Fields (movie)'' * (2002) ''Tres Lunas'' aka ''Tres Lunas'' - computer game soundtrack ===Live albums=== * (1979) ''Exposed (Mike Oldfield album)'' ===Compilations, remixes, etc.=== * (1975) ''The Orchestral Tubular Bells'' * (1976) ''Boxed'' * (1979) ''Impressions'' * (1980) ''Music Wonderland'' * (1981) ''Episodes'' * (1985) ''The Complete Mike Oldfield'' * (1987) ''A Virgin Compilation'' * (1990) ''Collector's Edition Box I'' & ''II'' * (1993) ''Elements 1CD (Mike Oldfield album)'' (1CD) * (1993) ''Elements 1973-1991'' (4CD) * (1997) ''XXV: The Essential'' * (2001) ''The Best of Tubular Bells'' * (2002) ''Collection'' ==See also== List of songs over fifteen minutes in length ==External links== * [http://www.mikeoldfield.com mikeoldfield.com] - The official Mike Oldfield website (requires Macromedia Flash plugin) * [http://www.mikeoldfield.org mikeoldfield.org] - The official Mike Oldfield information service * [http://www.tubular.net tubular.net] - Tubular Web, the largest and most well-established Mike Oldfield website. * [http://oldfield.info oldfield.info] - a community website; home to the #mike_oldfield IRC channel. * [http://www.musicvr.com musicvr.com] - Official MusicVR support website (purchase and subscription required). British guitarists British musicians New Age music 1953 births
Mike Oldfield
According to Oldfield in an interview, Moonlight Shadow was not about Lennon's assassination. However, he admitted that it was possible he may have made the connection subconciously as the time at which he was writing it, he arrived in New York the night the assassination happened. Does this warrant a rephrasing of the statement about Moonlight Shadow? ---- Perhaps change to "Moonlight Shadow was influenced by the Death of John Lennon but was not written with the death in mind"? User:GregRobson 20:41, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC) ---- The New Wave music article names Mike Oldfield. What do you think, does this makes sense? In two intervies I got from google (unfortunately, german interviews translated into german) Oldfield expresses his disregard - but I have to admit that his sound around 1983-84 was not far away from famous New Wave Bands. Just listening to "Dancing With Tears in my Eyes" from Ultravox ;) User:Rabauz 13:39, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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