Tubular Bells is quite easily one of my favorite albums of all time. (Or songs...it's kind of the same, in this case.) It's also one of the few albums I like that my Mum likes (she's not too much into music, although she married my dad, a musician, who's into most of the music I am). I was into prog rock when I first listened to it, and I had heard this was officially a prog classic. Being the sort of person who likes extended pieces of music like this (I seriously collect albums that are basically one song, like Tubular Bells, Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play, the Decemberists' The Tain, ect.), I thought it was amazing. The lack of lyrics struck me as rather unusual at first, because everything I listened to then had words. But then I realized that having no lyrics is part of the beauty of it. Music doesn't need to have words to be beautiful (just look at classical music, which Mike Oldfield has tried to emulate, by the way).
Most people seem to think the Caveman Song (as I call it) is creepy. I don't think it's creepy so much as funny. I think it's funny that Mike Oldfield put it in there. (Apparently, a record company he showed the song to said that they'd sell the album if he added lyrics. He didn't want to. As a result, he threw this in, deciding, "Well, here's the lyrics".)
I want to add that Mike Oldfield recorded this when he was just 19, and played almost all the instruments himself. (Vivian Stanshall is introducing the instruments, and all the vocal parts except the "Caveman Song" are other people. Someone else played bass and drums, I can't recall who.) I think that's incredible that someone does that (or rather, someone else - I am a musician, and I record all the music and singing exclusively on my own). Tubular Bells thusly struck me as quite inspiring.
Out of all the modern music pieces written and composed (modern meaning, it's too new to be classical), I think that Tubular Bells is one of the finest and greatest. It tells no real story and has no real meaning, but the beauty is that, especially since there are no lyrics, you could take the music as telling a story of some kind. (Part One somehow makes me think of dying and going to heaven, though I don't really know why.) Tubular Bells is the piece that Mike Oldfield will always be most remembered for, and it's good that he should, because it is truly a beautiful piece of art.
Tubular Bells is quite easily one of my favorite albums of all time. (Or songs...it's kind of the same, in this case.) It's also one of the few albums I like that my Mum likes (she's not too much into music, although she married my dad, a musician, who's into most of the music I am). I was into prog rock when I first listened to it, and I had heard this was officially a prog classic. Being the sort of person who likes extended pieces of music like this (I seriously collect albums that are basically one song, like Tubular Bells, Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play, the Decemberists' The Tain, ect.), I thought it was amazing. The lack of lyrics struck me as rather unusual at first, because everything I listened to then had words. But then I realized that having no lyrics is part of the beauty of it. Music doesn't need to have words to be beautiful (just look at classical music, which Mike Oldfield has tried to emulate, by the way).
Most people seem to think the Caveman Song (as I call it) is creepy. I don't think it's creepy so much as funny. I think it's funny that Mike Oldfield put it in there. (Apparently, a record company he showed the song to said that they'd sell the album if he added lyrics. He didn't want to. As a result, he threw this in, deciding, "Well, here's the lyrics".)
I want to add that Mike Oldfield recorded this when he was just 19, and played almost all the instruments himself. (Vivian Stanshall is introducing the instruments, and all the vocal parts except the "Caveman Song" are other people. Someone else played bass and drums, I can't recall who.) I think that's incredible that someone does that (or rather, someone else - I am a musician, and I record all the music and singing exclusively on my own). Tubular Bells thusly struck me as quite inspiring.
Out of all the modern music pieces written and composed (modern meaning, it's too new to be classical), I think that Tubular Bells is one of the finest and greatest. It tells no real story and has no real meaning, but the beauty is that, especially since there are no lyrics, you could take the music as telling a story of some kind. (Part One somehow makes me think of dying and going to heaven, though I don't really know why.) Tubular Bells is the piece that Mike Oldfield will always be most remembered for, and it's good that he should, because it is truly a beautiful piece of art.